Yukon Arts Center
Seeing Tom Jackson live in concert may not seem like such a big deal for a lot of folks, but it sure was for my wife and I on December 15, 2011.
Sure we’ve been to numerous local school Christmas concerts over the years just to be there for the kids and enjoy the enthusiasm of their offerings, but never once have we ventured into the beyond of a real concert hall together.
That’s why it’s a downright historic date for her and I, because in twenty five years of marriage that day marked the first occasion we consciously decided we were going to a concert, to hear a real live internationally known performer do his thing in a building that actually IS a concert hall.
One with genuine acoustics, raised seating and tickets you actually had to pay for, even. In fact it’s the very same one you see in the picture with this post, at the Yukon Arts Centre.
Yeah, I know that seems strange to a lot of you, but until the arrival of this particular performer in our neck of the woods going to a concert really wasn’t high on our list of priorities. We live in our quiet small little village for reasons that have nothing to do with big towns and the usual list of their normal offerings to town dwellers.
Tom Jackson
But December 15, 2011 has altered a little of that perspective for us.
Singer and actor Tom Jackson of CBC’s famed “North of 60” TV series was in Whitehorse doing a Christmas benefit concert for our food bank in town – concerts which we learned he’s been doing year round now for the past 21 years in support of such organizations to help alleviate the needs of the hungry. It’s a worthy cause, and Tom Jackson and his merry band of musicians are wonderful representatives for that cause.
The concert was filled with humor, anecdotes and beautiful music focused on the spirit of the Christmas season, and sung with high honor to the birth of Jesus Christ which forms the foundation of the Christ-mas season itself.
He played to a concert hall in which every seat had been sold, and from which every person in those seats rose to their feet not only in accolade of the performance, but also to share in common voice the strains of ‘Silent Night’ as the performers exited stage left and right.
It was a fitting ending to a Christmas concert that filled more than a few eyes with tears of both laughter and the genuine emotions of Christmas which seeing Tom Jackson live in concert evoked in our hearts.
He opened the doors of our awareness in a way that surprised and delighted our own hearts.
We’ll still be choosy about who we pick to go see in the future, but you can bet that we will be going to see performers live in concert a little more often in that future.
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