It's time for Toronto to take a "chill pill" over losing the Live 8 concert to Barrie's cheaper, concert-ready stage, Tyler Stewart, Barenaked Ladies drummer, said yesterday.
"Toronto really needs to take a chill pill and just drive up the 400," said Stewart, who will join his band to rock 35,000 fans at Park Place in Barrie for Live 8.
"You're going to the cottage anyway. Just stop in at the frigging show."
Michael Cohl, producer of Live 8, confirmed yesterday the former Molson Park in Barrie will host the free concert on July 2, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The concert is not a fundraiser, but is intended to raise awareness about poverty in Africa.
Downsview Park and Exhibition Place were both in the running right up until 6:30 Monday night, Cohl said, but with no existing stage and dressing-room facilities, the extra $1.5 million building cost was the stumbling block.
"Those kinds of facilities cost millions of dollars to create," Cohl said. "This place has a stage, it has a backstage, it has security, it has dressing rooms. It has a whole lot of stuff we don't have to pay for.
"We can afford it and it's a great venue," he said.
Toronto's SARS benefit concert cost more than $10 million to stage at Downsview Park in 2003.
Cohl said while Mayor David Miller did everything in his power to bring the show to Toronto, it couldn't be done. He added Barrie is really just a suburb of Toronto anyway.
"Far too much is being made out of a 35-minute drive."
Live 8's website lists the concert site as Park Place, Toronto.
Cohl refused to be pinned down on where exactly in Toronto the show might have been hosted.
Planning for the concert started six weeks ago, he said.
Cohl said his first choice, Parliament Hill, couldn't be used because Canada Day celebrations July 1 will run late into the night, meaning a tortuous turnaround. Whistler, B.C., offered to host and pay for the event, too.
"It's a chance for us to strut our stuff," said Barrie Mayor Rob Hamilton, who added that Miller called to congratulate him yesterday morning. "He fought hard to get it in his city and I guess we got lucky."
Miller issued a statement saying the city "did everything in our power to meet the logistical challenges of bringing Live 8 here," and is disappointed it couldn't happen.
While Barrie scored the concert, there isn't much in the way of hotel rooms available to begin with, and most have already been snapped up for the long weekend.
Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo said Barrie is "a very easily accessible corridor. And it's the best venue because it's cheap."
Stewart, one of rock's great jokesters, cracked the Ladies are happy to play on such "fertile agricultural land," a reference to a huge marijuana grow house operation discovered in the old Molson plant in Barrie.
Live 8 tickets are available tomorrow at www.ticketmaster.ca, with a limit of two per person.
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