On October 13th while The Doobie Brothers rocked the Scotiabank Centre in downtown Halifax, downstairs a more intimate night was about to take place featuring Canadian artists Kellie Loder and the long-awaited return of Donovan Woods at the Lighthouse Arts Centre.
Kellie Loder
Kellie Loder, originally from Badger, Newfoundland and Labrador, has had incredible success in the last couple of years. Coming second in the hit show “Canada’s Got Talent”, along with winning the “Songwriter of the Year” and “Fans Choice Entertainer of the Year” awards at the 2023 East Coast Music Years. Kellie knows how to put on an unforgettable show. Starting the night off by introducing themselves as “Donovan Woods”, making the crowd laugh right from the start, also noting that “they couldn’t afford to bring their band with them”. The entire show kept the crowd silent and in “aw” as they lit up the room with every tune. Kellie played their song “When It Comes to You” which is featured on CBC’s top 20 hits list as they stated. The entire set was switched up between beautiful electric and acoustic guitar tones and did an incredible job opening for Donovan Woods in front of the sold-out crowd.
Donovan Woods
The Juno Award-nominated Toronto-based artist came to the stage with a smile on his face, greeting the crowd by saying “Get to your seats, we have folk music to play”. From the very beginning of his set, he was making the crowd chuckle in their seats. Playing hit after hit, he really made for an amazing evening of folk music and laughter.
He mentioned that he had just returned from a 3-week tour across the United States and that it felt good to be back in Canada. He told a new story between every song, which kept us all interested throughout the hour-long set.Notably played his 2020 hit “Clean Slate”, as well as the song “Our Friend Bobby”, which is a song about a lost childhood friend who he had lost in a tragic car accident. This was my favorite song of the night, really shows how he puts emotion in the songs he writes and shows why he is an award-winning artist.Donovan played songs from his new album “Big Hurt Boy” released on October 20th (You can pre-save it on his website). The crowd was silent throughout every song he played the whole night, and every word he sang followed an emotion and a memory that you could visualize sitting in your seat. I’m incredibly happy I got to experience this concert because it was one of my favorites I’ve seen in a long time, Kellie and Donovan work perfectly together, and I hope to see them both again in the near future. Donovan Woods & Kellie Loder in Halifax ended out to be a prefect night out.