Red Ride Tour making a stop in Prince Albert

This was the beginning of both the Red Ride tour and a significant friendship between the two.

‘Red Ride 2r’ came next and Lane said that they began gaining more recognition.

“People started inviting us, they were like ‘Oh Red Ride, come to our town, you have to play here,’” Lane said. “Every year we’d just do it, and every year we got a larger tour, because people wanted us to come out.”

This year the fifth annual Red Ride Tour will hit 15 cities across Canada and the United States over two months, with most of the dates in Ontario.

While the tour is meant for everyone to enjoy it has strong ties to Lane’s aboriginal heritage.

“All the artists on the tour are aboriginal, and we started doing that from the beginning, the aboriginal music community is pretty close knit,” said Lane. “We’d have friends in each area kind of help us set up the show, and fill the opening slots and headlining slots with our friends along the way.”

The tour has always been very relaxed, Lane said.

“If there was room in the van we would likely take people with us, and send them home when they needed to go home,” said Lane. “It just gets bigger every year.”

Lane’s producer and fellow aboriginal musician – and Juno award winner – Derek Miller is joining her on all 15 stops this year.

Miller said he’s looking forward to trying some new things this year.

“We’re just having some fun and exploring some of the musical landscapes of what’s available with technology today,” said Miller. “We’re turning our guitars into synthesizers and trying to get some good beats and melodies happen.”

While Lane has never been to Prince Albert, Miller has visited the city before and is looking forward to it again.

“It’s always a great community, everybody is always so welcoming,” said Miller. “I look forward to sharing some music with the people again.”

Local event coordinator Conrad Burns had a hand in bringing the tour to Prince Albert to help kick off ‘Rise Up-Prince Albert.’ The movement is focused on drawing more attention to the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).

“When I first met them, one of the organizers was [focused on] missing and murdered women,” said Burns. “We thought that would fit really [well] into the general education of abuse towards women.”

Burns is referring to Miller, who is putting together a not-for-profit organization that would focus on drawing more national awareness to MMIW.

Miller describes the organization as an artist’s alliance raising money for resources to keep indigenous women safe, with a goal of one day holding a one-day national telethon.

“There’s a lot of obstacles that we have to get through, we don’t want people to just think we have a slush fund,” he said.

Until then Miller is spreading the word, but he’s hoping to keep the political part out of it.

“It’s always in our hearts and in our heads,” said Miller. “There’s really no need to bring in that kind of political or any kind of vibe to it.”

Lane holds the issue close to her heart as well, having written a song on her newest album Dark Matter.

“There’s a song on the album called ‘Woman’ and it’s kind of in response to that where it’s just like, it brought me to my knees twice in one week….it’s rough,” said Lane.

“It makes me really mad knowing there’s a 15-year-old girl pulled from the river, there’s an Oscar-nominated actress and nobody will look for them because of the colour of their skin…it drives me nuts, you just don’t understand it, and you get kind of angry about it.”

Lane feels like these judgments are based on long-held stereotypes.

“It doesn’t really matter who you are, as long as you’re an aboriginal woman, you’re going to be probably disregarded,” said Lane. “I know if I disappeared tomorrow, people would be like ‘oh she’s just out partying for days’ or things like that.”

“It’s hard to think that if me or my friends went missing that nobody would look for us, until it’s way too late.”

Despite all of this Lane said she is still hopeful that change is just around the corner.

“There’s a lot more in the media, I think a lot of people are in the same spot that I’m at, where it’s like you’re just at the end of your rope and you’re angry and you’re not going to just sit around anymore,” said Lane. “You’re actually going to get out there and pound the pavement about it.”

The concert will kick off the ‘Rise Up-Prince Albert’ two-week event on May 19 at the Friendship Centre.

Burns says he chose that venue for its connection with the community.

Doors open at 7 p.m. and tickets at the door will be $20.

Prince Albert will be the Red Ride Tour’s first stop, with Saskatoon on May 20 and Regina on May 21.

You can check out a video of last year’s tour highlights here.

jbowler@panow.com

On Twitter: @journalistjim

by James Bowler

Red Ride Tour making a stop in Prince Albert

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