The 2008 Juno Awards, which take place tonight at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, will likely be best remembered for the outfits. And the performances by the likes of five-time nominees Feist, Avril Lavigne and Michael Buble. And the hosting duties by irreverent comic Russell Peters.
Who actually wins the hardware? Maybe not as important.
Still, I'm betting Calgary-raised singer-songwriter Feist will be this year's big Juno winner because who doesn't love a hometown- girl-makes-good story plus she truly deserves it with her breakout album, The Reminder, and its memorable single, 1234. Feist promised not to perform 1234 during tonight's telecast because it was suffering from what she called "performance exhaustion."
Back in February, when the 2008 Juno nominations were announced, the Amherst, N.S.-born, Toronto-based Feist was excited about the awards coming to a city where she spent her formative years.
"To have (the Junos) be in Calgary the year that I'm going to be there (with five noms), there's something vaguely poetic about it," she told Sun Media that day. "It's the nest. It's where it all started."
She also joked that everyone could have dinner at her mom's place.
Also, the six-time-nominated Celine Dion is on tour in Australia, and is a no-show this year, so it doesn't make sense for her to trump Feist now does it?
The only real controversy this year was the omission of Anne Murray's Duets collection from the best-album race. It was later added as a sixth nominee in the top category, which usually only has five competitors after CARAS (Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) admitted a mixup in the ways sales were tabulated.
"You wonder how seriously they take it, the counting and all of that," Murray told The Canadian Press about the error.
She added it means "the person who is not supposed to be in there could conceivably win."
Last night, 32 of the 39 Juno trophies were handed out during a pre-telecast dinner and gala hosted by Measha Brueggergosman, the wise-cracking and talented young opera star who, in a rare move, is also scheduled to perform on tonight's Juno show.
"I would say that as long as I have been watching the Junos, it's not a regular occurrence," Brueggergosman said. "And it's very exciting, but not surprising, that in Canada we would think it would be a cool component to add classical music to something that's going to be broadcast all over the world in order to fully represent the spectrum of genres that are being done extremely well in this country. So I'm very excited that the producers would want that as their mandate to truly represent Canada, coast-to-coast, genre-to-genre."
At the other end of the music spectrum, classic rock group Triumph of Lay It On the Line fame will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during tonight's broadcast.
The late '70s, early '80s arena rock pioneers -- made up of singer-guitarist Rik Emmett, bassist-keyboardist Mike Levine, and drummer Gil Moore -- have already announced plans to regroup, after a two-decade absence, for the Swedish Rock Festival in early June and will also appear at the Rocklahoma Festival in Oklahoma in July.
"I think it just kind of stuns you a little bit because when you start a band it's sort of a voyage into the unknown so you really don't have any aspirations beyond not failing, so that's about as lofty as your goals are," said Moore at the Juno nominations press conference.
"To end up in the Hall Of Fame it just hits you over the head like a two-by-four. It really does. It's humbling, that's the word that comes to mind."
Burlington-Ont. rock act Finger Eleven, who were up for three awards heading into Juno weekend and will vie for single and group of the year tonight and perform on the show, echoed the importance of being recognized at home after a breakthrough-year in the U.S. for their hit song, Paralyzer.
"It's amazing because there was a lot of last year that we spent in strange places that we didn't know anyone, it was just us and our little huddle," guitarist James Black said.
"Whenever you come home it's a great feeling, but to get a nice kind of pat on the shoulder from everyone here that is doing the same thing, trying to achieve the same things, it's a great feeling."
As for their performance on tonight's Juno telecast, they promised something special after performing Paralyzer on the rooftop at last year's MuchMusic Video Awards.
"It's going to be incredible," Black said. "We have a neat idea planned for the performance. Calgary's just an amazing rock 'n' roll town."
