Whistler 2010 Winter Olympics – Feist, Jenn Grant, Victory Medals Ceremony

Another day at the Olympics. The Whistler village has been growing in traffic ever since the opening day and its only getting more exciting.

To start of the day today was a band called La Volée d’Castors (A flock of Beavers) and they put on a great folk show. The bad originated in Lanaudière located North east of Montreal and they have come a long way since their origin.

The group started with four members, Nicolas Froment, Mathieu Lacas, Martin Mailhot and Sébastien Parent who all joined together in 2003 to do what they love and create some amazing contemporary musical arrangements. Shortly after in 2004 the band created their first musical album Galant.

The following year (1995) they where joined by a new member from Sainte Marie Salome, Frédéric Bourgeois. This is when the band really took off in the right direction. Later on in the year La Volée d’Castors performed their first show outside of Quebec at the Northern Lights Festival Boréal in Sudbury Ontario.

After their excellent performance at the Northern Lights Festival they where joined by another member Réjean Brunet in 1996. This year the band became the official musicians for a traditional Lanaudière dance ensemble, les Petits Pas Jacadiens. While being the musicians for the ensemble they still manage to put together a few shows in Montreal and Quebec city in their spare time.

1997 was a huge year for year for the band when they played at the World Folk Festival in Saint-Malo, France. The following year they released their second album Par monts et par vaux. After their album released they where being invited to various Radio and Live performances which helped them promote their new album.

Currently the Castor’s are still an Independent band who continue to tour around North America and Europe to play shows for everyone who loves music.

After the Castor’s finished their we where joined by Jenn Grant a Canadian Pop singer songwriter and her wonderful band.

Jenn Grant was born in Prince Edward Island by Ken and Heather Grant. She later moved to Halifax Nova Scotia when we was 10 with her mother and brother when her parents broke up. Jenn later enrolled in Saint Marys University but later graduated from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with a Bachelor in Fire Arts with a major in Painting.

Jenn performed as a musician in her early teens but stopped due to stage fright until her early 20′s when she started to play shows with “Heavy Blinkers“.

Jenn released her first independent EP album in 2005 titled Goodbye Twentieth Century. Not long after her EP was released Jenn started collaborating with Ron Sexsmith, Matt Mays and a few other local musicians on recording her debut Album, and later toured Germany and Canada to support her new Album including an opening act for “The Weakerthans“.

In 2008 Jenn started writing her second album Echo’s on a small farm in rural Ontario. She was able to release her new Album Echo’s in 2009 which everyone was able to enjoy at her live performance here in Whistler.

Jenn once said in an interview they her music is inspired by her everyday life.

“I draw inspiration from any situation going on around me. I was writing a song yesterday and it dawned on me, it was about people I know. I thought, ‘Oh god, they are going to figure it out.’ Then I played it for my neighbour, Tanya Davis, and she figured it out. I was like, ‘Oh damn.’  ”

With Jenn’s many talents as a singer songwriter and a painter as trade she still manages to enjoy both while writing her own music and lyrics along with painting and designing her own album covers.

Later on in the evening I was able to attend the Victory Medals Ceremony at the Medals Plaza in Whistler.

Tonight the medalist in Whistler where for the Men’s Biathlon 12.5km Pursuit Cross Country race and the Women’s Luge Singles.

Vincent Jay of France winning the bronze medal in Men’s Biathlon 12.5km Pursuit, after winning Gold in the 10 km sprint a few days earlier.

Christoph Sumann of Austria celebrates winning silver in the Men’s Biathlon 12.5km Pursuit. Christoph still has one more race on the 21st with another chance to Medal for Austria in the Mens 15km Mass Start.

Bjorn Ferry of Sweden takes Gold in the Mens Biathlon 12.5 Pursuit winning his first Olympic Medal.

The medalist for the Men’s Biathlon Men’s 12.5 km pursuit

The next athletes who entered the stage to be awarded their medals where the Women’s Luge Singles athletes.

Natalie Geisenberger of Germany winning the Bronze Medal for her country.

Nina Reithmayer of Austria celebrates winning silver medal for her speedy finish in the Women’s Luge Singles.

Tatjana Huefner taking home the Gold for Germany

The Women’s Luge Singles Medalists

After the medals ceremony the crowd was able to enjoy a live show from Canadian singer songwriter Feist. Leslie Feist was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia February 13, 1976. Feist is a solo artist and also was one of the founders of the Broken Social Scene in 2001. Feist has also been known to have been romantically linked several times to three of her Brocken Social Scene namd mates, including Brendan Canning, Andrew Whiteman and Kevin Drew.

Feist spent most of her youth singing in choirs and when she was 12 she performed as one of 1000 dancers in the open ceremony of the Calgary Winter Olympics which she cites as the inspiration for her video “1234″.

When she was 15 years old Feist founded a Calgary Punk band Placebo with her lead vocals and they won a local battle of the bands which won them an opening spot to Infest Festival. At the festival she met Brendan Canning who’s band hHead had played before hers and with whom she joined in Broken Social Scene with 10 years later.

In 1995 when she was 19 years old she had to take time off music to recover from vocal cord damage. The following year she moved to Toronto where she was asked to play bass by Noah Mintz (who was a member of hHead) for a band called Noah’s Arkweld. Remarkably Feist played for the band as a bassist despite never having played before.

In the summer of 2001 Feist self produced 7 song at home that she called The Red Demos. While she was on tour in Europe she began recording new versions of The Red Demons which would later become her major label Debut album Let it Die. Later in her career she directed her own music video for her song One Evening which featured fellow Canadian musician Buck 65. This video was nominated for Best video of the Year at the 2004 Juno Awards which is quite a nonination for a Self directed music video.

Feist had also made some appearences on Sesame Street during its 39th season doing an alternate version of “1234″ teaching children how to count. She also sang a due with Elmo later in the same episode. Feist was featured in a photo essay on Folk music in the Novermber 2007 issue of Vanity Fair and was photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

Later in 2009 Feist rejoined Broken Social Scene at the North by Northeast performance celebrating the launch of the bands biography entitled The Book is Broken, in which she was prominetly featured. This contraditcted various rumors that Feist was unlikely to play for the band again, and it was reported Feist will appear in Brocken Social Scenes upcoming album to be released in May 2010.

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