Seven Things to Do in Metro Vancouver Jan. 24-Jan. 30: Four virtuoso guitarists, towers of tiny bricks, and more
Credit to Author: Shawn Conner| Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 19:00:11 +0000
Whether you’re looking for date ideas, free things to do or just something fun to do in downtown Vancouver, you can’t go wrong with our list of events happening around Metro Vancouver between Jan. 24-Jan. 30.
Headlining this week’s picks is International Guitar Night.
For more ideas, click HERE for our coverage of Vancouver’s arts scene, or HERE to search our entertainment listings database.
Here are seven things to do in Metro Vancouver this week:
When: Jan. 25, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Massey Theatre, New Westminster
Tickets and info: $20-$40, masseytheatre.com
Heads up, guitar fans: At International Guitar Night, four virtuoso acoustic guitar players each play a set before teaming up in duos and quartets. This year’s featured players are British fingerstyle pro Mike Dawes (lead guitarist for Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues); Turkish fretless improviser Cenk Erdoğan (composer for film and conductor of orchestral music for Sezen Aksu, the queen of Turkish pop); Finnish Gypsy-jazz ace Olli Soikkeli (pictured, “one of the most adept and resourceful contemporary guitarists” in that idiom, according to The New Yorker); and Hawaiian slack key master Jim “Kimo” West (longtime guitarist for “Weird Al” Yankovic).
When: Jan. 26, 8 p.m.
Where: St. James Hall
Tickets and info: $28 at roguefolk.bc.ca, Highlife and Tapestry
Keeping the tradition of old-time fiddling alive in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, Foghorn Stringband has released seven albums and played thousands of shows over the last decade. From their origins in Portland, Oregon, the core duo of vocalist/mandolin player Caleb Klauder and fiddler Stephen “Sammy” Lind have since picked up bandmates Nadine Landry (bass/vocals) and Reeb Willms (singer/guitarist) and a repertoire that includes gospel, country, and Cajun music. “Our approach is really about keeping it as traditional as possible, playing with a lot of respect,” the Eastern-Quebec-raised Landry told Anchorage Press recently. “It’s such a broad genre to call it Americana or folk, that kind of incorporates everything, but you kind of need to have a little bit of everything to keep it really traditional and high energy.”
When: Jan. 29-Feb. 1
Where: Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, Burnaby
Tickets and info: $36 at tickets.shadboltcentre.com
Manchester-based writer/performer Javaad Alipoor explores online extremism, anonymity and hate speech in this one-man show. It’s also multimedia and interactive, with audience members invited to take part on their phones via WhatsApp. Among other accolades, The Believers Are But Brothers picked up the 2017 Scotsman Fringe First Award; in a review of a performance during the show’s 2018 run at Vancity Culture Lab, Colin Thomas called Alipoor “charming, loquacious, playful, unapologetically bright, and associative.” He also said, “The Believers Are But Brothers is explicitly not an indictment of social media, but it still scares me.”
When: Jan. 25
Where: Pacific Coliseum
Tickets and info: $80.50, at ticketleader.ca
Eight years after splitting up, the St. Catharines, Ont. rock band released two new songs, Complicit and Familiar Drugs, followed more recently by Season of the Flood. “Coming back we knew we wanted to do something heavy, because we’ve all been listening to heavy music,” frontman George Pettit told the Edmonton Journal. The quintet is on tour with another band on the comeback trail, The Distillers. Last year the Los Angeles punk released its first new music in 15 years, the songs Man vs. Magnet and Blood in Gutters.
When: Jan. 24-Sept. 7
Where: Science World
Tickets and info: tickets.scienceworld.ca
Like Lego? Like buildings? This exhibition features 20 of the world’s best-known skyscrapers built out of tiny bricks by Australia’s Ryan McNaught. You’ll see replicas of, among others, the CN Tower, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. McNaught and his team (who used more than half a million pieces and took over 2,400 hours to create the structures) will be in Vancouver to help build out the exhibition. Visitors can also create their own structures using available pieces and bits.
Pic credit: Adam Ouahmane.
When: Jan. 24
Where: Commodore Ballroom
Tickets and info: From $65.50 at ticketmaster.ca
Local performers share the stage with headliners from Rupaul’s Drag Race. This year’s show features 10 Canadian drag talents and, from the hit TV series, Brooke Lynn Hytes (2nd place, Season 11, pictured) and Monet X Change (Winner All Stars Four). YVR performers include Kendall Gender, Gia Metric, PM, Continental Breakfast, Bibi SouPhresh, and Tiffany Ann Co.
When: Jan. 23-26
Where: Rick Bronson’s House of Comedy, New Westminster
Tickets and info: $25.95, at bc.houseofcomedy.net
Trevor Wallace has found his niche tweaking the nose of branded corporate America. His online videos, like his series Life As A Zumiez Employee, about his life at the multinational specialty clothing store, and *drinks White Claw once*, his video about a “hard seltzer” beverage, have garnered millions of views. (The makers of White Claw even issued a cease-and-desist order to Wallace for his line of T-shirts reading Ain’t No Laws When You’re Drinking Claws.) The 27-year-old American comic has also been featured on Buzzfeed, Funny or Die, Super Deluxe, Fusion TV, and MTV2.
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