Skip to content

Barney Bentall's back

Rocker returns to Brentwood Bay for concert to benefit summer's Music in the Park event
11289sidneyAEbentall
Barney Bentall

After wowing local audiences for the past five years with Barney Bentall’s Grand Cariboo Opry, Barney Bentall is back in concert to help fund Brentwood Bay’s Music in the Park.

“We’ve hosted Barney’s Cariboo Opry for the past five years and sell out each year,” said Leslie Gentile, artistic director for Music in the Park. Those events have raised more than $3,700 for local food banks.

The upcoming show will be very different from the Cariboo Opry, where a dozen or more musicians share the stage. Accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Eric Reed, this show will feature Bentall’s hits, from the early days of the Legendary Hearts to his latest releases, Gift Horse and The Inside Passage, in a stripped down, acoustic concert.

“This will be an amazing opportunity to hear Barney’s songs pared down and clean,” Gentile said. “The power of his songwriting really comes through.”

The funds raised by the concert will help back other artists to perform in the summer music series in Brentwood Bay.

“Music in the Park is completely financed by the members of our community – from the grant-in-aid from the Central Saanich municipality, to local businesses who sponsor performers, to the little kids who buy popsicles from our stand. Music in the Park is completely community driven,” Gentile said. “We need to rebuild our funds for the coming season, and given the current economy, we are aware that it is harder for businesses and families to donate each summer. We want to continue offering the same great level of entertainment.”

Brentwood Bay’s Music in the Park runs on Wednesday nights for seven weeks in July and August in Pioneer Park in Brentwood Bay.

Bentall will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 23 at Friendship Community Church, 7820 Central Saanich Rd.

Tickets are $22 and are available at Breadstuffs Bakery and the Dollar Den in Brentwood Bay as well as online through Eventbrite, with a link on www.brentwoodbay.info.