Honoring Our Own

When I started the newsletter ‘Rock Raff’ I found the PR people at the record companies to be a great asset. They welcomed me and my little paper which I must admit wasn’t much. ‘Rock Raff’ never had a large subscription base and it wasn’t available in a lot of places. Yet I still managed to get interviews, CDs to review and, best of all, the occasional free concert ticket.

 

One concert I loved was when Bryan Adams was touring in support of the release ‘Waking Up The Neighbours’. I was given two tickets so I took my best friend at the time. It was quite heady to be sitting right in front of the music critics for the two major newspapers in town. (Those two gentlemen sat calmly throughout the show while my friend danced and sang. Not very professional of me I guess but I was having fun.)

 

In Canada we have something called the Canadian Content Law and that means that a certain percentage of music played on the airwaves has to be Canadian content. Similar rules for television too but for this piece, we’re not concerned about TV.

 

Anyway is Canadian, there is no doubt about that. We are proud to call him one of our own. But with the release ‘Waking Up The Neighbours’ which contains the single ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’ (Love song from ‘Robin Hood’), Adams was not granted Canadian status. What an uproar! Adams was ticked, fans were outraged and a call to update the laws was being called for.

 

So that was the atmosphere at the Saddledome that evening. I looked down and my heart swelled with pride. A group of young people had a big banner that read “100% Canadian”. Bryan’s fans knew where he was from.

 

I don’t know if that controversy helped sales or not. It was interesting to watch though.