Joel Plaskett Emergency got the Calgary flood-cancelled Sled Island Festival set they didn’t get to have at TURF on July 4, 2013. Photo: Tom Beedham

“I was looking forward to playing this in Calgary until it actually happened,” Joel Plaskett told the crowd at TURF while taking a break to introduce his band’s “Natural Disaster.”

The song took on a new personal meaning for the singer-songwriter when heavy rainfall and flooding in Calgary forced the organizers of the city’s Sled Island Festival to cancel shows for over 270 artists still scheduled to play, a headliner of which was Plaskett’s band.

Plaskett’s TURF performance was introduced as “the show that never happened, and then did happen.” The show the Emergency delivered was one Plaskett personally illustrated with all the emotions one can imagine experiencing over the course of such a narrative – all under a blue sky the band never got at Sled Island.

Originally published by The Ontarion.