If you didn’t get a Tour De Fort Passport and are hoping to hear some live music right here at home, you have a chance coming soon.
Canadian blues musician Jesse Roper is making a special appearance on the Townshend Theatre stage next Tuesday, November 4, 2025, as an extra performance aside from Tour de Fort’s regular passport season. Roper was on tour in Long Island where the Times reached him by phone. He said, so far, it’s been an up and down tour.
“We’re just out living the dream here on the road,” he said.
“Playing for a few and then playing for many, then playing for a few and playing for many. Trying to figure out how to get the masses in the buildings.”
According to his management at Paquin Artists Agency, Roper plays all kinds of music, but finds his home in blues and Americana with a hint of indie.
“Jesse Roper is a blues/Americana artist with a penchant for writing modern indie infused blues music and delivering bombastic live performances buoyed by his virtuosic guitar playing,” they say.
“His innate and impressive musical talent has served him well in recent years. It has given him the flexibility to play with soul icon Booker T. Jones, rock veteran Colin James, blues belter Beth Hart, and Canadian legend Burton Cummings, then turn around and headline nightclubs and festivals to younger audiences, and look perfectly comfortable in each scenario.”
When it comes to his own writing, Roper says he draws inspiration from a variety of sources.
“When I was younger I loved AC/DC,” he said.
“I still love that energy, but I’ve moved on to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and kind of a lot of old soul stuff. A lot of the stuff my parents were playing when I was young, that obviously played a huge role in my inspiration.”
Roper also enjoys finding newer bands whose sounds he likes, and said he finds that modern music apps and their algorithms can help with that.
“I gotta say for finding bands these days, Spotify has been good,” he said.
“I’ve found a few, Black Joe Lewis is my current favourite right now, he plays a really exciting variety of blues. The lyrics are crazy and it’s got a lot of energy to it and he’s got a certain particular soul that I really dig. BCUC is this band from South Africa that blew my mind at this festival I saw them at. I like a lot of high energy stuff. In general I like stuff that makes my pulse quicken and my hair stand up on end and anything like that out there, that’s my inspiration.”
Roper says he tries to make his own shows high energy.
“It doesn’t always come out in the music, because I’m not always high energy writing it, but when I get on stage I have a lot of energy, I can’t help it, I just get filled up with it. Some nights it might be a little less because we’ve had like no sleep and drove for eight or nine hours to get to a place since it doesn’t summon it up the same way.”
Roper will be coming through Fort Frances on a tour that started in B.C. at the start of October and snaked its way east in Canada and the U.S.A. and headed back west after a stop in Charlottetown, PEI. His stop in Fort Frances comes between shows in Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.
His band consists of two guitar players, a bass player, keyboardist and drummer to bring his lively sound to life. Ahead of his show at the Townshend Theatre, opening act Northshore and Rivers will take to the stage.
Tickets for Jesse Roper are $25 and are available at tourdefort.com, the Fort Frances Public Library or Ski’s Variety. The show is on Tuesday, Nov. 4, with music kicking off at 7:30 p.m.
