Billy Talent closes out Calgary Stampede’s Coca-Cola Stage

The Coca-Cola stage featured The Static Shift and Billy Talent to close out the Calgary Stampede.  The music and the crowd was wild and left you wishing there was more to come back to tomorrow.  Unfortunately, there are 51 weeks until the next Stampede.

Calgary’s own Static Shift, winners of The Launch and just off tour with Collective Soul started off the night.  There was a large crowd on hand for them as well as more than double the usual security, expecting crowd surfers to make their way into the photo pit.  The crowd was quite well behaved, almost to the point of “mellow” at the beginning … but then it is an opening acts “job” to get the crowd warmed up and ready for the headliner … One of the guards commented that The Static Shift’s style of music and clothing and it’s like a “baby Woodstock” and he really missed the Woodstock era!

 

Billy Talent

Billy Talent packed the area in and around the Coca-Cola Stage and the sound building!  Security ended up needing to put barriers up in the walkways to keep MORE people from getting in. As is typical of a Billy Talent show, there were a lot of crowd surfers and things thrown on stage – luckily just at the end and beginning of songs.  Security had an interesting collection of stuffed animals and some clothing off to the side.

 

 

 

So much energy and enthusiasm all around that even though people left on a high, it was a bit of a downer that was the last show of the year on the Coca-Cola Stage during the Calgary Stampede.