It's A Long Way To The Top... of Magnetic Hill.

The poet John Lydgate and former president Abraham Lincoln both said, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

After this past week, I think both men must have spent some time in Moncton.

In case you missed it this past Wednesday, what could be deemed as a surprise announcement was made in regard to the Magnetic Hill concert site. Many had thought ‘The Hill’ had seen its last kick at the can as far as an entertainment venue goes, including me. Just when we all thought the curtain had come down it was announced that one of the world’s most popular rock bands, AC/DC, is returning to Magnetic Hill on September 5th to dish out their iconic brand of rock and roll to a capacity crowd that will be seeing them for the final time ever on their last world tour.

This is a great news story for the city that has fallen off the radar in recent years when it comes to putting on large scale music spectacles – something we were once renowned for. Over the last few summers, people have talked about large drawing festivals in Quebec and Cavendish, P.E.I. – and even Cape Breton Island hosted their own successful event last year with Aerosmith. We didn’t even hold the title of also-ran, because we stopped running a few years ago it appeared.

When the announcement was made, social media lit up with hundreds of excited tweets and status updates (mine included) and there was electricity in the city in many circles that has been absent for far too long. Like clockwork, though, The Debbie and Dougie Downers had to make their presence known about what they saw to be the biggest travesty in our area’s history.

“AC/DC again? Who wants to see a bunch of old men that have already been here?”
“The ticket prices are ridiculous! I’d rather go to (insert local tavern) to listen to (insert local band)!”
“The city can’t afford this! How much money are we spending on this garbage?”
“Why can’t they bring (insert niche musical act here)? They would draw huge numbers!”

I’m a huge AC/DC fan and have been my entire life. The very first album I owned was ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ and I was one of the first people to buy a ticket the first time they hit town back in 2009. I will be front and center again this year and there’s nothing that’s going to rain on my parade when I get to see my favorite band on the planet again. To summarize, I’m pretty freakin’ happy.

The fact of the matter is, though, that I would also be as happy if it were Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga – and I can’t stand those human muppets. I’d be happy because it would – as AC/DC certainly will – bring some much needed tourist dollars into our city and some new feet on the ground taking in the sights and sounds of Moncton. Grumble all you want about “no real way to measure it” when it comes to economic spinoff, but I took an informal poll and it looks like three quarters of Cape Breton Island will be packing up their cars and heading to the Hub City on Labour Day weekend. Half of those people, I believe, expect to be camping on my lawn. Each of those people are going to come with a pocket full of money and they have full intent on spending it while they’re here. Could you tell me how all those people, plus thousands more doing the same thing from all over the Maritimes is a terrible thing again? Last time they were here, AC/DC helped inject an estimated $10 million in revenue into the area. That’s no chump change by any measure, folks. It’s going to happen again.

Just a few months back people were complaining about the Magnetic Hill site not being used for anything – myself included. Now people are complaining that it’s being used for something they don’t necessarily care for. That, folks, is a textbook definition of ‘impossible to please’. I didn’t complain when they brought Nickelback – and they’re terrible. I was happy for the folks who got to enjoy a show in our city and even happier for the local merchants who profited from the sudden influx of people to the area. Right now we should be ecstatic and doing everything we can to make our city even more appealing and making the event as big of a success as one could imagine.

It’s great to have a massive scale show back in the city that has been absent from the concert scene for far too long. Maybe we can shake off the perception that this is the city that music forgot and fill the Hill with 90,000 rock and roll fans on September 5.

To the parties who got this rock and roll train moving again, from those of us about to rock (in seven months) we salute you.