As 2022 unfolded, leisure venues started to reopen following the very darkish days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By all of the pandemic uncertainty of the previous 12 months, there have been many memorable moments on the Surrey leisure beat, as chronicled beneath (in no specific order).
• A Surrey-based sitar virtuoso was deemed the primary individual to ever play the instrument so near the height of Mt. Everest. In Could, Sharanjeet Singh Mand made the journey to Nepal with a gaggle of 11 individuals, and carried his delicate sitar up the well-known mountain to its base camp, the place he performed the instrument for others on the trek. Sadly, the instrument was later broken throughout a home flight to Montreal, and Mand was not pleased with the airline.
• Nickelback’s Surrey-raised drummer, Daniel Adair, flew excessive in an episode of Radio Chatter, an “airborne talkshow expertise” that options interviews with outstanding individuals whereas seated in a Cessna 172 plane, with Youtube present host/pilot Mat Mosveen. The Adair episode, debuted in Could, concerned a clear-skies flight above the lakes and snow-capped mountains of Garibaldi Provincial Park, northeast of Squamish.
• In Newton’s city centre in June, Surrey’s very first Automotive Free Day occasion featured a variety of music and dance performers together with Ashleigh Ball, daysormay, DESTINEAK and others, plus distributors, meals vans, a beer backyard and extra. It was a giant hit, as individuals crammed 137 Avenue in the course of the Newton BIA-hosted gathering, offered by TransLink and deliberate by MRG Occasions.
Cheers to Jim Trimble, an entertaining Surrey resident who died in Could at age 91. (Photograph: Tom Zillich)
• In Could, at age 91, most cancers claimed Surrey’s “Diamond” Jim Trimble, who liked to entertain crowds later in his life. Identified for his booming voice, nice head of hair and delicate method, Trimble helped launch The Vaudevillians seniors leisure troupe and, extra lately, the Bare Stage theatre firm that presents script readings at Newton Cultural Centre.
• It was nice to see Newton’s fledgling Pivot Theatre decide up steam with an rising variety of performs and fundraising occasions (together with one involving drag queens that sparked controversy when pictured on the entrance web page of this newspaper). My introduction to the corporate’s work was “A Late Snow,” the stormy story of 5 homosexual ladies trapped in a cabin in a single day, at Bethany-Newton United Church in November.
• They weren’t staged in Surrey, however I want to say two Arts Membership Theatre Firm performs that stood out this 12 months — the slapstick, ultra-physical comedy “Peter Pan Goes Incorrect” at Vancouver’s Stanley theatre, and Farren Timoteo’s hilarious “Made in Italy” on the firm’s Granville Island stage. So good, so humorous, so price seeing in the event that they ever come again (hopefully someplace in Surrey).
• Planners of Surrey’s FVDED within the Park music pageant scrambled to search out new headliners (Excision, Rick Ross) after Grammy-winning American rapper Younger Thug was arrested on gang-related expenses south of the border. For the primary time in a few years, the two-day July occasion crammed Holland Park with ticket-buyers who love hip-hop, R&B and digital music.
• For the primary time in three years, Surrey Fusion Pageant attracted hundreds to Holland Park on the weekend of July 23-24. It was the pageant’s largest turnout in 15 years, based on the Metropolis of Surrey, though precise attendance will not be recorded on the free-admission occasion. Headliners included Surrey-raised, rising-star R&B duo Manila Gray, notable for a Juno nomination for Breakthrough Group of the 12 months. Again in 2018, the duo had been finalists within the pageant’s “Play Surrey” band contest, however misplaced to winner Sleepy Gonzales.
A photograph posted to the “Jurassic Fest Surrey” web page on Fb earlier than the Cloverdale-area occasion was cancelled, in a cloud of controversy and confusion. (File picture)
• Within the 12 months’s largest boondoggle, some individuals who purchased tickets for Jurassic Fest Surrey wished their a reimbursement, with no luck. Metropolis officers ultimately pulled the plug on permits for the dinosaur-themed exhibit, first scheduled for April 1-3 at Cloverdale Fairgrounds’ Agriplex, postponed to Aug. 12-14, then scrubbed altogether. South Africa-based occasion producer David Huni made excuses for the runaround, however ticket-buyers had been lower than impressed (rightly so).
• At Surrey Arts Centre’s Most important Stage in June, the rock present “Queen: It’s a Kinda Magic” was a crowning achievement for a four-piece band fronted by South Africa’s Dominic Warren, who sings Freddie Mercury’s troublesome vocals with near-perfection. Excellent news: The tribute is again on the similar venue subsequent spring, June 6 (examine tickets.surrey.ca for information and seats).
• In July, seeing Baz Luhrmann’s positive “Elvis” film at Guildford’s Landmark Cinemas made for a comfortable couple of hours within the theatre’s new “Premiere Seating” — heated recliner seats with energy adjustable headrests, facet desk and coat hook in “a private privateness enclosure,” as the corporate stated, for teams of two or three individuals. Sure, please.
• Over the spring and summer season, drummer John Cody had the large job of transferring his 200,000-item file and DVD assortment from one home to a different in South Surrey. Amongst his practically 200 band gigs through the years is the present one led by his spouse, rock singer Lee Aaron. “She will get overwhelmed by all of this, and he or she’s not a collector in any respect,” Cody revealed.
• On Nov. 12, it was enjoyable to listen to the Rogers Enviornment-rocking Bryan Adams discuss his temporary time dwelling in Surrey. Through the homecoming live performance, earlier than he performed an acoustic “Straight From the Coronary heart,” Adams saluted his mom Jane within the crowd and instructed the story of “getting the shit kicked outta me a few instances” whereas dwelling within the Guildford space within the late-Nineteen Seventies.
• July was a magical month for lifelong Surrey resident Billy Hsueh, who turned president of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Magicians at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Based 100 years in the past, the Missouri-based IBM is taken into account the world’s largest group devoted to the artwork of magic, with practically 15,000 members in 88 nations. “It simply feels actually good to symbolize a company that I’ve been a part of since I used to be, like, 11, and with the ability to give again, as a lot as I can, for every part this group has carried out for me.”
• Nonetheless displaying at The Museum of Surrey is the “Surrey on Display screen” exhibit, opened Aug. 18 for a better have a look at the town’s filming historical past. Costumes, pictures, props and different film-related objects characteristic Surrey-shot reveals together with Smallville, Supernatural, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Superman & Lois, IZombie and extra. Curator Colleen Sharpe and museum employees assembled the exhibit with the assistance of an archives group with Warner Bros. Discovery, the Metropolis of Surrey’s movie workplace and Cloverdale BIA. The exhibit is price a glance earlier than it closes in April.
• In Phoenix, it was a profitable September efficiency for Surrey-based Westcoast Concord Refrain, which earned a sixth-place medal on the prestigious Candy Adelines Worldwide contest. The Anne Downton-led refrain’ achievement was celebrated after greater than two years of Zoom rehearsals, adopted by outside rehearsals, indoor rehearsals in hula hoops, masking and COVID cancellations. Bravo!
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Arts and EntertainmentYear in Overview
