High Beam Dreams is providing yet another sign that the Sunshine Coast is slowly coming out of many months of COVID hibernation, with three concerts and a series of workshops scheduled at the Gibsons venue over the next several weeks.
First up, on Sunday, July 11, is the Coast vocal trio Definitely Diva, with Lynne Dickson, Wendy Hibberd, and Patrice Pollack. Joining the singers will be Miles Black on keyboards and Barry Taylor on drums.
“We’re very happy that we are starting our first concert with a local band,” said Vineet Miglani who, with wife Nidhi Kamboj, owns High Beam Dreams. “These women in Definitely Diva have been absolutely fabulous with us and with all the changes in dates and timelines.”
The concert was first planned for last fall, then postponed due to the pandemic until Valentine’s Day, then put off until June, and now July.
Definitely Diva is definitely ready to boogie, too, and finally bring their jazz, pop, Latin, and light rock repertoire to a live audience.
“We’re pretty excited,” Dickson said in an interview. “We have had a lot of time to practice. After all this time, we know the songs,” she added with a laugh.
Except for a break in the dead of winter, the trio has kept rehearsing. “We started practising outside, 10 feet apart. It was just freezing,” said Dickson. “Then we moved inside with all the doors open. We’ve been putting in two four-hour practices a week for the last month.”
The public also seems ready for some live entertainment. A 4:30 p.m. show quickly sold out (at the previous crowd limit of 50), and Miglani and Kamboj then added a 12:30 p.m. concert. Additional tickets for both shows, which can now accommodate 100 people each, were made available with the relaxed rules that were set to come into effect July 1.
Miglani and Kamboj have not been idle over the past, shuttered nine months. They’ve been making further improvements to the swoop-roofed former United Church on Glassford Road that they bought in 2017 and converted to a site for concerts, and organizational and family events.
The couple have added a café, The Brass Spoon, and have reworked drainage to prevent water pooling on the property. They also installed a 10,000-litre rainwater-harvesting tank, which will be used to irrigate the outdoor area. That area has also been revamped so that concerts can be held al fresco, under canopies if needed. Definitely Diva’s is the venue’s first outdoor show.
Also upcoming in July is the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s Sitka String Quartet on Saturday the 17th for an indoor show. And as part of RogueFest, Roberts Creek’s Joel Fafard will perform outdoors, followed by bluegrass quartet Kentucky Eileen on July 31.
Meanwhile, starting July 5, Gibsons School of the Arts has booked the venue for a series of eight four-day workshops, running Monday through Thursday.
