Terra Lightfoot prepping for P.A. performance

By Scott Roos, Herald contributor

“ATTENTION PRINCE ALBERT! There’s a creepy ghost story in your town and the band and I are coming anyway” reads the caption on Terra Lightfoot’s facebook page. For those of you that have never heard of it, the story she’s referring to is of a mysterious light that shines at certain times of the night near the township of St. Louis said to be either a ghost train or the ghost of a long dead conductor.

Scary P.A. tales aside, she is entirely correct and I am pretty stoked. On Wednesday, January 23rd, roots rocker Terra Lightfoot will be performing at the EA Rawlinson Centre of the Arts on her “New Mistakes” Tour.

Now that we’ve gotten that extremely important bit of info out of the way, I’ll say by strange coincidence that the last time I saw my friend Terra Lightfoot perform was in August of 2015 and it was also a bit spooky. It was a dark and stormy Saskatoon night in the midst of their annual “Fringe” festival. Part of Broadway Avenue was blocked off and there were many interesting characters out and about in spite of the weather. There was certainly an amazing vibe in the air brought on by these things but, unfortunately, I was one of only a few in attendance at Terra’s show.

“I seem to remember that it was my friend Wesley, and (opening act) The Garrys, my friend Brandon, and you and I can’t remember anyone else,” chuckles Terra when I bring it up.

Since then, it’s been amazing watching Terra’s career skyrocket as more and more people have come to know her and her music. Terra is very humble and certainly well grounded about her successes. It’s something that over the years I have found very appealing about her and I think that, along with her obvious musical talent, it has certainly helped her to get as far as she has in a very competitive music business.

Her rise in popularity in the last three years was mainly sparked by many top musicians enlisting her services as an opening act on tours.

“It was mostly just really amazing musicians that I respect asking me to open their shows and that made some roads for me to kinda get in there myself,” recalls Terra.

Of course, now I’ll get to see her in a much larger setting at the Rawlinson. It’s going to be fantastic for me personally to see Terra in the “soft seater” element as I’m sure it also will be for others in attendance.

“There’s a big difference to playing a club as to playing a theatre. A theatre gives you something different. It’s not necessarily better or worse, but in a theatre, I feel more comfortable being quieter sometimes and playing special songs that I never get to play in the rock clubs because most of what we do is crazy outlandish rock n roll. It’s nice to kinda tame that down and put myself out as a songwriter too,” states Terra.

Terra’s music is part blues, part straight ahead rock, part soul and part folk. She’s extraordinarily gifted at melding these sounds together to form something that is uniquely her and that’s what makes her such a special act to see live!

Finally, as to the “Ghost Light”, she states “I think after the show we’re going to head out there – maybe with some unsuspecting patrons and try and get some ghost footage on the old iphone”.

Now that you’ve said it Terra we might hold you to it. Good luck and see you soon.