Well, it wasn’t actually a do-over. Last night, Tim played the last night on his “Get Loud” tour at the Centre in the Square in Kitchener, Ont. It had been rescheduled from last month when he had to cancel the original Kitchener date due to an upper respiratory infection. It was the first time Tim has ever cancelled a concert. And as the tour name said, it was loud…and good!

Madeline Merlo opened the show performing most of her hits so far in her career…. Interesting that she’s now based in Nashville and all the musicians backing her onstage were from Ontario. And she’s sounding better than ever!

Tebey flew up from Nashville yesterday to make the concert date and he never disappointed in performing his recent first #1 hit as a recording artist (“Who’s Gonna Love You”), several other of his hit singles and his first #1 hit as a songwriter, Justin Moore’s “Somebody Else Will” from last year. Look for Tebey to headline his own tour in the New Year.

And Tim was spot on, performing hit after hit with special guest, London’s Genevieve Fisher joining him on his current single, “The Worst Kind.” Tim took time, while his band vamped, to take selfies with audience members in the front row and even off to the side. The guy certainly knows his way around all the different makes and models of cell-phones! Hicks’ voice was also spot on and a special shoutout to his sound crew. The vocal effects on specific parts (lines, sometimes words) were right on the money. Last night’s show was a bit of a homecoming for Tim. Backstage, he told me and onstage, he told the audience, he had lived in the area for a number of years, attending the University of Waterloo and playing many gigs in and around the university for those years.

It was a bit of a homecoming for me being at the Centre in the Square last night. The first show I saw there was Don Williams. I showed Tim the dressing room where I interviewed Johnny Cash in June 1988, 30 years ago. I remember the pranks Conway Twitty’s band pulled on their opening act, Prairie Oyster (the pranks involving fishing line tied to the drummer’s mic and putting limburger cheese on the lead singers’ mics). Hanging out backstage last year with Charley Pride and Tommy Hunter. And I remember MC’ing a Steve Earle concert there in October 1990 that was recorded and released as his live album “Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator.” Kitchener was spelled wrong in the credits. It came out as “Kitchner.”