Music from all over Canada brought a Timmins crowd to their feet.
The Sultans of String — Chris McKhool, Kevin Laliberté and Drew Briston — and special guests Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk, Glen Gould and Marc Merilainen, took to the stage at O’Gorman High School with music from multiple Indigenous communities as part of the Walking Through the Fire tour.
The concert was hosted by the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre.
Ninety people clapped and cheered along to Métis reels, Inuit throat singing, modern rock songs and East Coast kitchen party music for two 45-minute sets, along with a standing ovation and a sing-along encore.
The eclectic and cultural variety in the show was a draw for the audience, as well as the show’s goal of educating about Indigenous culture, truth, and reconciliation, and the 94 calls to action put forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“We have a lot of family who are Indigenous, so I’m looking forward to learning more about reconciliation,” said Sedona Jones. “I hope to learn a lot.”
Seeing a musical show in town also drew some of the audience in.
“I was pretty excited just to lose myself in culture tonight,” Rosanna Moreau. “I’m an enjoyer of music.”
The multimedia aspect of the show saw the musicians on stage playing alongside videos of artists from Nunavut and the Pacific Northwest.
The show also gave the audience a glimpse of the impact residential schools and colonialism have on Indigenous artists.
Shannon Thunderbird’s song Lost and Found expresses her truth regarding the discovery of 215 graves at the Kamloops residential school in 2020. The performance included Thunderbird’s video performance and Delbaere-Sawchuk’s live performance combined.
That part of the message was not lost on the audience.
“Music transcends words sometimes, and there’s a lot you can communicate with that,” said Jones. “It was a perfect mix of a fun celebration of life and earth and recognition and respect to all that has come before with the residential schools and all that has been done to the Indigenous communities.”
The diverse music styles also reached many in the audience who are not from Timmins originally.
“East Coast music is really enjoyable to listen to,” said Karmela Briggs, originally from Labrador.
Delbaere-Sawchuk, a Métis from Winnipeg and a member of the Métis Fiddler Quartet said that feeling is part of the experience.
“It can transport you to places. It allows us to travel distances that our physical bodies can’t, so that echo and the ripple transports us in ways we can’t really explain,” she said.
Delbaere-Sawchuk said the feeling from the crowd during the show was palpable.
“You could feel the resonance in the room. Everybody was so alive,” she said. “I’m on a high after the show!”
Chris McKhool with Sultans of String agreed.
“This was the most rhythmic audience we’ve ever had,” he said.
Glen Gould, who plays Matthew Spears on Bones of Crows, was performing with the group for the first time on Thursday, and he said the crowd made it a great start to his time with the show.
“It wasn’t a huge crowd, but wow,” he said.
Gould has had a fast introduction to the show and the music.
“This is a different level of music for me; I never heard any of these songs until five days ago,”
He said. “I watched the show in North Bay last night for the first time. I was practicing my parts in the back of the theatre.”
Gould will perform with the group until his last show in Thunder Bay.
“It’s really nice to see the audience come alive,” said Kaitlyn Dubeau, the Timmins museum’s assistant curator. “It was really nice to see what the performance looks like. We heard about all these multimedia aspects, and I think we really knew what to expect, so it was really cool to see it all come together.”
The Walking Through the Fire tour’s next stop is in Geraldton on Oct. 13.