“Natalie MacMaster must be the most fit person in the world.”
It was a comment from a woman the day after Natalie MacMaster played at the grand opening of the Townshend Theatre–and the sentiment is understood.
MacMaster bounded onto the stage, fiddle in one hand, bow in the other, and without a word goes into a fast-paced jig for an opening number.
Not once did she stop moving. She bounced her body to the beat in a kind of half dance, half kick manner. She leapt across the stage from one band member to another in a kind of let’s-see-who-can-play-the-fastest kind of challenge.
Then, to top it all off, she put her fiddle down, grabbed a drink of water, and then came back on stage to show off her dancing skills, tapping out a high-paced beat with the drummer.
Then it was right back to fiddling.
You got exhausted just from watching her–but was a good kind of exhausted.
It wasn’t until after she had performed four different numbers she finally spoke.
“How’s she going?” she asked the audience in a maritime accent, sipping her water bottle and sounding a bit short on breath. “We’re going good too.
“It is a bit of a celebration tonight because we’re the first band to play here, which is pretty cool,” she added.
MacMaster recalled the last time she played in Fort Frances four years ago, just when she was starting her climb to fame. She said she and the band were a bit more relaxed this time around, noting she and the band arrived about 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start.
“I think the time change threw us off,” MacMaster said, noting she was coming from Thunder Bay. “You’d think living in the same province you’d be in the same time zone.”
Despite her seemingly boundless energy, MacMaster demonstrated she could bring the tempo down as well as send it soaring sky high with such ballads as “Josephine’s Waltz.”
“I learned it from a Canadian Fiddler who lives in Nashville, who learned it from an Irish band, but it’s a Swedish tune,” she said.
MacMaster comes by her fiddling talents naturally. Her Uncle, Buddy MacMaster, is one of the country’s most renowned fiddle players. At the age of 75, MacMaster said her uncle is still alive and well, fiddling away on Cape Breton Island.
“Where will I be when I’m 75?” she wondered. “Probably up here in front of you, sagging,” she laughed.
“I probably won’t be so energetic then,” she added.
“The good part” of the show, as MacMaster put it, was when the band brought out a few chairs to the front of the stage to bring things “back to the kitchen” of Cape Breton.
To make things even feel more like home, MacMaster’s pianist left his keyboard and took front centre stage to show off his dancing skills.
All of it wove together to create a relaxed, casual style of performance that MacMaster has made a name for, peppered with her off-hand style of wit.
“This tune may give you an intense craving for doughnuts,” she said. “I played it for a Time Horton’s commercial a couple years back.
“We still getting coffee and doughnuts, which is good,” MacMaster added. “Food is very important when you’re on the road.”
MacMaster closed out the show with what she called the “Big Mac of fiddle medleys,” disproving the myth that fiddlers can’t head-band and play at the same time.
For her efforts, Mayor Glenn Witherspoon presented her with a plaque to hang on her bus, commemorating her as the first performer in the Townshend Theatre for the Performing Arts.
So, what do you do if you’re a Cape Breton fiddler after you’ve given it your all for over an hour at the grand opening of a Northwestern Ontario theatre?
“We’re going to do another show after this,” MacMaster said. “Aren’t we crazy?”