All of Canada has been counting down to the big Juno Awards show gala tonight – we’ve seen the commercials, we’ve heard the nominees, we’ve patiently listened to CTV’s advertisements. Now the night is finally here: as I type this, Canadian music celebrities are walking down a red carpet towards a glamorous auditorium.
But did you know there was an extremely similar awards gala last night?
Apparently, there are two nights of awards – an untelevised half, during which the majority of awards are given away, and the better-known televised half, starring performances from all the big names.
Yesterday’s awards, hosted by Jian Ghomeshi, saw a whopping 35 out of 44 awards given away.
Larry Leblanc, a prominent Canadian music journalist who was honoured with the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award at last night’s ceremonies, spoke out against how the Junos have evolved towards the televised/untelevised dichotomy.
“Do we really need to see Billy Talent one more time?” He said, speaking to a room full of media after receiving his trophy.
The Junos started evolving into stark contrast of the two events with CTV’s involvement, Leblanc said, which has pushed many awards to the edges to make room for the bigger and more popular names in Canadian music, like Marianas Trench and Carly Rae Jepsen.
“The Junos does not represent CTV. It does not represent rock music,” Leblanc said. “When was the last time a classical artist played at the Junos?”
Yesterday saw a couple of big awards given away – for instance, Carly Rae Jepsen received Pop Album of the Year, and Adam Cohen accepted Artist of the Year on behalf of his father, Leonard Cohen.
There were some wonderful moments witnessed only by those gathered in the auditorium, and missed by the rest of Canada.
Take, for instance, Pugs and Crows’ acceptance speech of Instrumental Album of the Year – during which the five-person band joined their voices together for an a capella ditty.
“It’s the last 30 seconds of the last song on the album,” the band said afterwards, “but I guess nobody caught that, so we weren’t disqualified.”
One of the most touching moments of the evening was when David Gold’s mother accepted a Juno for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year on his behalf. The Woods of Ypres member passed away suddenly last Christmas.
“David always said, ‘Love the living,’” Esther Gold said, holding the trophy. “So do that – do that for David. Love the living.”
She asked the audience to “throw the horns” to honour his memory, a hand gesture meant to resemble devil horns popular in metal culture. The auditorium solemnly did so, repeating David’s name three times.
The evening was also peppered throughout with Jian Ghomeshi’s witty banter and joking resentment towards Michael Bublé, who will be hosting the televised awards.
“Damn that Bublé – talented. Charming. He makes Jim Cuddy look like a troll,” Ghomeshi said.
Ghomeshi also offered to cuddle with Juno nominee Corb Lund, who did not win in his category.
“Cuddle like cowboys,” Ghomeshi clarified.
Yesterday’s awards gala was a celebration of Canadian culture in so many ways. On the other hand, that just makes it that much sadder that so few Canadians get to enjoy it, let alone know that it happens at all.
