THERE BE GIANTS AT THE JUNOS
Peters dishes on co-host Adams
As technical crews rolled in road cases and pulled cables around the Canadian Tire Centre in preparation for Sunday’s Junos, the man who heads Canada’s biggest awards show said he’s revelling in the hype surrounding Canadian music this year.
“It’s probably, for me, one of the most exciting times I have ever seen in Canadian music,” Allan Reid, president and chief executive of the Juno Awards and the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, said Tuesday.
“It’s not just this year but the build that’s been happening,” Reid said, standing inside the CTC bowl. “I’ve been in this business for close to 30 years, and honestly not since the ’90s when Shania (Twain) and Céline (Dion) and Sarah McLachlan had that sort of dominance of the charts worldwide have we seen the same thing happen.”
Reid cites big hitters like Drake, Justin Bieber and The Weeknd as obvious standouts, but also other lesser-known, rising talents like Shawn Mendes, Alessia Cara, and The Strumbellas.
On Tuesday, Reid and the show’s executive producer, Lindsay Cox, led a behind-the-scenes media tour around the backstage dressing rooms and the arena bowl, where the show will be staged.
There were glimpses of the excitement to come as the technicians set the stage. Walking through the arena halls, visitors passed Mendes’s dressing room, which had a large pile of fan mail and gifts waiting for him. Props and a colourful rack of clothing were rolled into co-host Russell Peters’s room.
Peters is co-hosting the Junos alongside fellow Canadian Bryan Adams. This will be a first for Adams, who was happy to do it for his friend Michael Bublé. The crooner was originally scheduled to host the awards before he pulled out to be with his young son Noah, who was diagnosed with cancer last year.
Adams and Peters “stepped up right away and said, ‘If you need help we are here to support,’ ” Reid said.
“So that’s really nice they did that for him and for us. So we’ve gone from one iconic Canadian to now two, and I think Bryan and Russell are really looking forward to working together as well. It should be a lot of fun.”
The Junos air Sunday at 6:30 p.m. on CTV.