PREVIEW
Beth Portman and the Good Find
Tuesday, April 24 at 2 p.m.
St. Albert Community Hall
17 Perron St.
Tickets: $15 Call 780-459-1542 or at www.ticketmaster.ca
Trying to interview singer-songwriter Beth Portman while she’s playing shows on Via Rail is a challenge at best. Her cellphone keeps cutting out every two or three minutes. The rail cars' swaying and lurching keep snapping off connections.
The red-haired folk artist and her two support musicians, Kevin Smith (backup vocals, guitar) and Thom Golub (upright bass) are part of the VIA Rail Artist on Board program.
About five years ago Via realized that on-board performances provided passengers an additional experience. It quietly organized a program that offers free train fare and meals to professional Canadian musicians travelling long-haul Vancouver-Toronto or Montreal-Halifax routes, in exchange for performing.
“We’re having a great time and our music is a great fit for the train,” said Portman who just boarded one in Winnipeg on a return trip from Toronto.
Portman and the Good Find (Smith and Golub) perform three shows daily, one in each of the glass-covered dome cars. The acoustic trio sings a style Portman calls “prairie panache.”
Portman and the Good Find were a shoe-in for the Via Rail on-board program after releasing Take a Trip (2015), a four-track EP with train and travel connections.
“It references the prairies and has an old time feel. It’s retro roots (or in this case routes) with a 1920 to 1960 vintage vibe.”
A year later the EP’s success inspired Portman to create a train-themed show Take a Trip: A Musical Journey for Fort Edmonton’s Capitol Theatre.
No stranger to the iron horse, Portman acknowledges that its lurching action can make performances challenging.
“But Via is not too bad. We get to sit on this train. We played the Battle River Railway and we had to stand. That was challenging. I was in heels and we had a sound system. Every time we reached a curve, we had to brace ourselves against the wall.”
By and large Via's train concerts are a success.
“When people hear our music they call it joyful and uplifting."
After Portman and the Good Find disembark, they will appear at St. Albert Community Hall on Tuesday, April 24. Their one-hour performance will be filled with Portman’s original material from diverse records.
“The song themes will revolve around the journey of going from A to B physically and emotionally.”
