As we celebrate 11 years of bringing the best to Halifax, we’re super-stoked to announce that the inimitable Steve Poltz with return to The Carleton for a second show on Thursday, May 16th. Show time for this very special event is 8 PM and tickets are $30 advanced or $35 at the door.
Steve Poltz is not normal.
He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia (Canada) but has lived most of his life in Southern California and those geographic poles are quite likely responsible for his unhinged genius. He is a dual citizen – Canada/USA – but has often said that, “should a hostage situation arise, I become conveniently Canadian.”
Over the course of his life, he’s met Elvis Presley (who hugged his sister for far too long), trick or treated at Liberacé’s house (each finger had a diamond ring), was Bob Hope’s favourite altar boy (according to him), bravely traveled the world busking before he knew how to do it, famously co-wrote You Were Meant For Me with Jewel, pissed off David Cassidy and can count some of the world’s coolest people as fans.
He’s also an ex high school wrestler (98 pound class), as obsessed baseball fan, a yoga practitioner, a hopeless romantic, a smart-ass philosopher and a child-like adventurer/observer with an absurdist’s view of this crazy world and the various lifeforms that inhabit it. He’s interested in it all – the big and the small, the sublime and the ridiculous, the terrestrial and the cosmic.
He doesn’t just love life, he rides it bareback, naked, at a full gallop with one hand clenched deep in its mane and the other waving to anyone watching as he flies by. Time is ticking and he has work to do…
As a recording artist, he’s fronted the semi-legendary Rugburns and is responsible for a critically lauded body of work on his own: One Left Shoe, Chinese Vacation, Answering Machine, The Barn (a children’s album for grown-ups too), Tales From The Tavern (a performance DVD, Traveling, Unraveling, Dreamhouse, Noineen Noiny Nine, the soundtrack for the acclaimed Sundance-screened documentary, running Wild: The Life of Dayon O. Hyde and his latest, Folk Singer.
As good as his albums are (and they’re very, very good), Steve positively owns a crowd when he’s on stage; where the proverbial rubber meets the road. His shows are the suff of legend – no two are alike – and can take an unsuspecting audience from laughter to tears and back again in the spae of a single song. He is a maaster of improvisational songwriting and works without a set list (or a net) to be free to react instantly to the mood of a room. It’s also worth mentioning that he is an astonishing guitarist on top of everything else.
He is quite possibly the most talented, and engaging, solo performer on this planet. That’s what 250+ shows a year on three continents will do for you. Whether he’s Canadian, or American, or simply from space, there’s no denying there’s only one Stephen Joseph Joshua Poltz and to know him is to love him.