The CNE’s hit parade
Overshadowed for years by bigger, pricier acts at the now demolished Grandstand the CNE Bandshell is again the place to be for shows at the Ex, the way it was at its very beginnings.
1936: Modelled on the decade-older Hollywood Bowl, the stylish art deco Bandshell opens principally to host dignitaries at the Ex’s opening and closing ceremonies, otherwise showcasing military bands as war talk from Europe fills the air.
1941: A morale-boosting Bandshell turns to a pair of American crossover opera and film stars; the coloratura soprano Lily Pons and baritone Lawrence Tibbett. Pons was the Madonna of her day, a marketing genius whose face appeared on Libby’s tomato sauce cans. The fair was suspended from 1942 to 1947.
1947: With prime minister Mackenzie King on hand, the Bandshell reopens in triumphant postwar military mode with the likes of the RCAF No. 1 Air Command Band.
1949: The Bandshell debut of the Leslie Bell Singers, the ubiquitous, all-female angelic chorus founded at Parkdale Collegiate Institute, opens the door — very slightly — for pop.
1962: Louis Armstrong is on the comeback trail, sparked by his appearance in Charles Walters’ 1956 musical High Society, Grace Kelly’s last film before bolting to Monaco.
1966: The Brothers Four (“Greenfields”) are the Bandshell’s first serious foray into American hit parade territory although the quartet of folky Phi Gamma Delta frat brothers from Seattle made the Kingston Trio sound like the Clash by comparison.
1970. Rock and Coca-Cola team up to turn the Bandshell temporarily into a B-side version of Woodstock with the likes of Abernathy Shagnaster, Copperpenny, Brutus and Major Hoople’s Boarding House.
1972: Gene Krupa, legendary swingera drummer, rocks the joint a year before his death, keeping alive the Big Band spirit that was the backbone of the Bandshell for much of its life.
1976: His support for the Vietnam War eviscerating his popularity, Bob Hope officially opens the CNE before heading to a Grandstand one-nighter in a not-so-funny comedown from his Grandstand starring days.
1987: Spice-Caribbean Night is the Bandshell’s too-little, too-late response to the city’s real identity and spirit. By then, Caribana is already 20 years old. 1989: Allan Lamport opens the fair, giving old-timers the chance to remember the ex-Toronto mayor’s capacity for malapropisms, as when he insisted that “Toronto’s the city of the future and always will be.” 1993: Shows by the Jeff Healey Band, Dan Hill and Murray McLauchlan bring to the Ex a sense of community not always present in the past. 1994: Looking as craggy as Mount Rushmore, Johnny Cash appears with his kin — June Carter and the Carter Family — reviving the belief that country is at its greatest when it’s time-tested, road-worn and not likely heard on country music radio. 2000: Brooklyn DJ/actor/whatever Mos Def sets aside the hectoring, lecturing attitude on his recordings for a seemingly impromptu set that energizes the Urban Music Festival. 2012: Arturo Sandoval, the Cuban trumpet great, blisters through a set of bebop barnstormers to turn the Bandshell into the most intensely intimate of jazz clubs. 2014: April Wine, arguably the greatest B-act in Canadian rock history, wrap things up with “Oowatanite”, reminding us that it should be the Bandshell’s signature song.