Genre is dead.
That’s my takeaway from the 2023 Boots and Hearts Music Festival, held this past weekend north of Barrie at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte. Genre, as we know it, has shuffled off its mortal coil.
Otherwise, Canada’s largest country music festival wouldn’t have Nickelback headlining Friday night. It wouldn’t have a dance party raging until last call. It wouldn’t have band members wearing more heavy metal T-shirts than Merle Haggard T-shirts.
And, as any country music fan will tell you, you either like Merle Haggard or you’re wrong.
But, in the confines of Burl’s Creek, country, as we know it, might as well be dead, and I’m here to tell you that’s a good thing.
And I don’t say that as someone who hates country music, because, honestly, I don’t. As much as Bro Country grates on me – and this festival is pretty much the Mecca of Bro Country – there are few things finer than a rolling drum beat, the twang a Rickenbacker guitar can make and the occasional late-night singalong to Friends In Low Places.
Nor do I say that as the jaded critic who can’t stand songs about how you come from a smaller town than someone, while driving a wider truck than that same person. At least not entirely. That essentially is the theme of Rednecker — a song title I wish I was making up — by Hardy. And if that’s the only thing I ever remember about his Kid Rock meets Creed cosplay, it’ll still be too much.
Rather it comes from someone who is learning that genre is entirely unnecessary.
Think about it: when someone asks you “What kind of music do you like?” typically, the answer is “all kinds.” It’s a knee-jerk response to a question we’re never actually prepared to answer, and just to be safe, we’ll stick to a cliché instead of going narrow, even if that cliché has some truth behind it.
Boots and Hearts is slowly but surely becoming a place for “all kinds.”
Are they my "kinds?" God, no. But I realize that they aren’t the problem.
Hi, it’s me. I’m the problem. It’s me.
I’ve said (and written) a lot about this festival in the past. I’m not saying my points weren’t (and don’t continue to be) valid, but I’m saying they might not be the most important thing in the grand scheme of things.
At the end of the day, 45,000 people set up shop in Oro-Medonte for a weekend and had the time of their lives. And as long as they try to clean up after themselves, don’t commit any felonies and avoid racial slurs, who am I to say they’re doing it wrong? Who am I to say they shouldn’t enjoy every minute of a Nickelback concert?
Okay. Maybe that’s a bridge too far.
Apparently, it’s not cool to slag Nickelback anymore, but I’m ignoring that memo. They’re the same abrasive, aggravating and auditorily abusive c-rock band they’ve been since the late-1990s, only now Chad Kroeger seems to have a southern inflection in his voice.
They’ve sold millions of records: bully for them. Until this weekend, I had never actually had anyone admit to me, in seriousness, that they loved Nickelback. Now? I’ve heard it from dozens and witnessed 40-odd-thousand of them singing along to Figured You Out.
The Saturday and Sunday headliners, Keith Urban and Tim McGraw, performed circles around their Friday counterparts. And, as is Boots and Hearts tradition, so did the acts on the undercard.
Raquel Cole, who also wowed in 2016, was the first one to plug back in Saturday following the evacuation, running her band through a full cover of the Bryan Adams classic Run to You to sound check as revellers waited for the gates to re-open.
She was soon followed by Blanco Brown on the main stage, who showcased his “trailer trap” music, a blend of country and hip hop that was arguably unlike any other set previously performed at Boots and Hearts. His medley of Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come and David Allen Coe’s Tennessee Whiskey (of course more famously covered by Chris Stapleton) was as stunning as advertised.
In a weekend full of covers, Sunday’s set from Nice Horse took a detour while keeping the streak of highlights alive on the Front Porch Stage, as the four Albertan women blistered through a 25-minute set of their smartly crafted songs.
More impressive, though, is they did so at the unenviable time of 3 p.m., with the park virtually empty and most festival goers in the campgrounds, trying to catch up from the previous three nights of debauchery.
While a few thousand people got to see JJ Wilde’s set Friday on the Front Porch Stage, it was still criminally under-attended. Barely a full 24 hours from the start of the festival, the show was stolen by the 31-year-old from Kitchener.
Backed by a killer band, she had complete control of her audience from the moment she walked out. And as strong as her original material is – and how well it sounded in the live setting – the exclamation point on her set was a duet with guitarist Daniel Bossenberry on the Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty classic Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.
Even if there was an otherwise unnecessary abundance of covers, this was the exception.
Let there be no doubt: JJ Wilde is a bona fide rock star who easily was responsible for the best 45 minutes of the weekend at Canada’s largest country music festival.
Genre is dead. Good riddance.
Patrick Bales is a freelance reporter and music lover whose work often appears in BarrieToday.
