Above From Left: Derina Harvey Band members Matthew O’Connor – fiddle, Edward Smith – bass, Derina Harvey – acoustic guitar, Scott Greene – guitar, Steve Pinsent – Drums.
– Supplied Photo
by Stephen Dafoe
stephen@morinvillenews.com
A group of transplanted East-Coasters hit the stage this weekend with an evening of Celtic Rock, east coast music, and their own original jigs and reels. The Derina Harvey Band will perform at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre Jan. 16 at 8 p.m. with cocktails at 6 p.m. and a catered dinner at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 per person, and Andrew Webb Carpentry is sponsoring the event.
“We’ve got lots of toe tapping fun, upbeat music to clap along to,” Harvey said of the upcoming show. “There are some story-infused love song ballads that hopefully would be far reaching and tug at a heartstring or two. I want to make you laugh. I want to get you moving and to be involved. Maybe make you cry, make you laugh again, and send you home.”
Harvey’s band has played across the country, and although performing on the East Coast gives them audiences that have grown up with Celtic music, the love of the musical genre has been ever present wherever they play.
“What I have found to be true is people across the country just love good music,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where they are from. A lot of the music, the Celtic classics, traditional Newfie music, and the Irish, Scottish, English stuff that we play; I think it’s all about a representation of an honest thing that happened. A man fell in love but moved away. We had a great time at a party. Somebody passed away, and we’re celebrating their life. That kind of thing. It’s just honest songs. We try to our best to give them the music behind it that’s appropriate for that story or that song. We try to deliver it that way.”
Much of that honest musical philosophy will be present in the band’s upcoming album Rove and Go. Their second album, the CD is set to be released in March.
“The album was born out of a call from our fans to have another album. They enjoyed the first one so much, they kept saying they had war it out, and need some new music from us,” Harvey said, adding the new album will have original songs, something their self-titled debut album did not.
Rove and Go is the first professional recording with their new fiddle player, Matthew O’Connor.
“It’s got a very nice texture to it,” Harvey said of the upcoming release. “It should appeal to people from all over.”
The Jan. 16 Morinville show will feature songs from the new and previous album as well as some covers of Celtic classics.
Tickets are available at TixOnTheSquare.ca and the cultural centre box office.
