By Chris Brown

Is it Friday yet?

Gord Bamford enjoying drive-in shows, two in Medicine Hat on Friday

Aug 10, 2020 | 5:03 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Canadian country music star Gord Bamford will perform at the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede on Friday, playing two shows as part of his Drive-In for Mental Health Concert Series.

He’s been back and forth across Alberta this summer with the concert series and is taking a glass-half-full approach to them.

“It’s kinda neat actually looking out to all these cars because when you social distance the cars I mean you’re literally playing to a football field and a half, a sea of vehicles,” he says. “It’s kind of a cool thing I don’t think any one of us ever would have thought that we’d ever be doing it so it’s kind of a history-making type of event.”

He adds the shows have been put together to make them seem as much like a “normal” concert as possible.

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“We’ve made it so it’s like a live experience. The whole concert bowl is surround sound production, we’ve got two big video walls,” he says. “Roll your windows down, open up your sunroofs and you hear great. I think it’s a creative thing in these times.”

While it’s as much like a normal concert as possible, there are some obvious differences that Bamford has had to get used to. First off, not having thousands of people standing in front of him has taken some adjustment.

“You see the first few rows in their cars but you know for being able to feed off the emotions of the fans it’s a little tougher. But it’s kind of like sports right now and hockey. They don’t have fans in the stands they still gotta go do their best job,” he says. “I really believe that where there’s a will there’s a way and for me you know you can sit back and be depressed about when are we going to play another show or you can come up with creative ways of playing music.”

That’s also led to a couple of new concert features. Bamford says everybody gets in to honking their horns or flashing their lights for certain songs and the encore has now become the “honk-ore.”

Bamford says he’s grateful to be able to perform these shows, saying he has a band and crew of people that have worked for him for a decade and it’s been important to keep them working.

“Thanks to ATB Financial for stepping up to the plate on this one sponsoring us to go out and raise money for mental health in all the communities.”

The local concerts will benefit the Canadian Mental Health Association Southeast Region.

Bamford will perform two shows on Friday night, the first starting at 8 and the second at 10:30

Tickets are available at gordbamford.com.