Lonestar rocks out at the Pickering Casino Resort

Written and Photographed by

Growing up, I would listen to Lonestar often. There’s no doubt that I was excited about this concert as they’ve been together for 33 years and counting. Coming out onto the stage, the fans went crazy. They had backdrop visuals and light pillars for their set. Whether it was the fans’ first time or twentieth time seeing them live, everyone was sharing the love in the arena. Lonestar has had 22 songs in the top charts and 10 of their songs reached No. 1. Playing, generating multiple No. 1 hits, they made the night special for everyone who attended. They stated that Canadian fans have also played a huge part in their music career.

The song they say that Canada has made a “military soldier’s anthem” is their song, “Already There,” as it talks about families asking “daddy, when you coming home” and the responses being “I’m already there. Take a look around. I’m the sunshine in your hair. I’m the moonlight shining down. I’m the whisper in the wind. I’m your imaginary friend.“

Another amazing highlight they incorporated into their set was to sing two covers of iconic songs sung by iconic women in the music industry. The first cover they did was “Rolling in the Deep,” originally sung by Adele. The other cover was “Here Comes the Rain Again,” originally sung by the Eurythmics.

They chatted to the audience a little bit in-between songs and told us how, instead of making a greatest hits album and putting all the original songs on the album, they actually completely re-recorded all 10 of their No. 1 songs and put them on an album together, naming it Ten to 1.

During their set, they had multiple guitar solos, as well as guitar changes for different songs, and even while they were performing their song “No News,” they did a harmonica solo at the beginning of the song and drum solo at the end, showing off their incredible musical skills.

All night long, they had their fans up dancing, singing and country rocking. The light production was phenomenal, with strobe light effects and smoke to go with the beat of the music.

Their last song for the night was another No. 1 hit, “Amazed,” and it made couples everywhere in the audience get up and slow dance in the aisle. This song is from their 1999 album and is still their most popular song of all time, charting over 300 million streams on Spotify to this day.

After saying goodnight to the Pickering fans, they quickly came back out for a five song encore of covers. Covering “In the Air Tonight,” “Another Brick in the Wall pt. 2,” “Jump,” “The Boys are Back in Town,” and “Life in the Fast Lane.”

Kalsey Kulyk, born in Saskatchewan, Canada, opened the show for Lonestar, and her energy and audience participation was amazing. Singing her latest single “Til I Get To Heaven,” her voice sounded like an angel. She had also performed her song “Love Me Like an Outlaw” which spent three weeks in the Canadian country charts. Her light production was stunning, as it changed from blues to pinks to oranges, and then all three colours together, making the colours look like a stunning sunset.