Radiohead Canuck Tour & More Info On Summer Festivals

"Radiohead is going to tour Canada this summer that's pretty well a given," Riley O'Connor, House Of Blues Concerts Canada senior Vice President, told ChartAttack's M&M in an exclusive interview today.

Asked if they're going to bring their tent he says, "That's a European tent they got. There are a lot of hurdles as far as fire code and engineering that they would have to get through before they start bringing it [their tent] to North America. It's a whole other reality, so they're just going to do outdoor live shows."

Every little golden nugget O'Connor supplied M&M with was a hard fought battle of determination on his part. We have learned that there will be three Canada Day concerts similar to EdgeFest. Fans in Toronto, Halifax and Edmonton can plan to spend July 1 watching some of the coolest talent this country has to offer. As far who is going to be on these bills, O'Connor wasn't very forthcoming.

"People can count on the fact that July 1 there will be something happening in the southern Ontario marketplace, that's pretty well a given. What we are trying to do is establish those in other markets. Our focus is Edmonton and Halifax."

While tied in loosely with Canada Day celebrations, the gigs won't have some weird gimmick where an artist does one show in Halifax flies to Toronto performs then heads to Edmonton. Our M&M has interviewed Staff Sergeants, politicians, crooks and high ranking deep throats to gain information on stories and never has he ever come across someone so tight lipped before. Except other people who work at House Of Blues, of course.

"We could be showing cartoons, I don't know," he says when asked about potential Canadian headliners for these gigs.

Granted, he has his reasons for not revealing more than he feels necessary.

"We don't like to speculate, because I don't like giving false hopes to anybody, alright. Plans change for every artist or circumstances arise that are out of everybody's control and it's just a let down. In today's media frenzy market place, 10 to 1 the leak will come out from a million different sources so I'm not trying to be the leader or anything like that. We have a work mode that we go into and we don't have time to speculate."

Instead of providing details of who is going to be where, O'Connor talks openly about bands he enjoys or thinks have star power within Canada. Some of the bands he cites are, Big Wreck, Copyright, Treble Charger ("they're always welcome"), Project Wyze (a new Sony Music Canada signing) and Finger Eleven.

"The way I work, I try to build Canadian talent. I try to give many opportunities."

Now what about cities that aren't going to have one of these one off Canada Day celebrations? Wanting to know if there is anything to know about a coast-to-coast summer tour that we can tell our readers, O'Connor stuck true to the party line by only remarking that there might be something important happening in late August. At least that's something we can look forward to.