It was a beautiful evening on Saturday, June 15 for the second concert of the year at the Serenity Performing Arts Centre. There were two foot-stomping performances that had local resident Arden Dunfield up ribbon-dancing. She had also brought scarves that she handed out to the young children. They copied Dunfield in her moves and added to the show. All the children were up and dancing.
First on stage was Elaine Ryan, who played the guitar and sang with a soft, clear voice. She had two back- up players – Justin Brown on the bass guitar and Jared Plett on percussion instruments – he played the tambourine/shaker on his feet.
Ryan was born in Ireland, moved to Vancouver when five and grew up there, and now lives in Maui. She sang a song called The East Side of Town, which was an ode to Vancouver. She also sang an Irish song, as when she is in Ireland she is asked to sing songs of Ireland.
"There are good venues and then there are venues that I adore. This is one of those," Ryan said about Serenity and its owner, Shirley deVooght.
"Shirley hosts shows out of a genuine desire to see independent musicians celebrated. She put us up in a great B&B, fed us dinner and made sure all our costs were covered. I can’t express how good it feels to be cared for this way. Many venues seem bent on getting as much out of musicians as possible and giving as little back as they can get away with, but at Serenity you really feel the love!" the singer added.
Ryan is on tour right now and Vavenby was her second stop. She finds going on tour very inspiring for writing songs. The young singer has an opportunity to tour the States. She will start in Vancouver, go to Washington, and then back up to Vancouver. She had CDs for sale at Serenity and her goal is to sell 1,000. She feels it’s a quality production named Sunsets and Twilights. You can find her on line at www.elaineryan.ca.
Good For Grapes was next up. The group was made up of David McBarnie, who was the lead singer and played the guitar and harmonica, Alexa Unwin who played the piano and provided vocals, Graham Gomez on guitar and provided vocals, Robert Hardie on bass and vocals, Sean MacKeigan on the accordion, and Blair Hansen on the drums and provided vocals.
They met in high school and have been a group for 2 1/2 years. They are an upbeat group from Vancouver and they had the audience clapping with the beat. The group had good harmony and beat.
They said, “Vavenby is very awesome. It is beautiful and we are happy to be here.”
Good for Grapes is busy recording its first full length album in Vancouver. Recordings are expensive to do so the group is looking for donations. People can go on their website. Their goal is to raise $800. The album is called Man on the Page.
The group made it into a competition called The Peak Performance Project in Vancouver. Twenty were picked out of 800 in B.C. Good for Grapes has planned a tour around B.C. and across Canada for the fall of 2013. Their last song of the night was very lively and had a lot of people up and dancing. The group received an encore.
The July performance at Serenity will feature the David Blair Band and Devon Coyote. For tickets or more information call Shirley deVooght at 250-676-0456.
