CKCU gathered some local talent and took over Live! On Elgin for its sixth annual benefit concert on Oct. 12, in light of funding cuts due to the Student Choice Initiative (SCI).
This year’s event held a new sense of urgency with the implementation of the SCI, which allows students to opt-out of non-essential fees during course registration.
“We knew that the budget was going to take a cut,” said Éliane Laberge, host of CKCU’s radio show Indie City Madness, who presented throughout the night along with her radio show co-hosts Julie Cormier-Doiron and Rick Vaughan.
“We didn’t know how much. We didn’t know to what extent we would be affected. So we, CKCU’s board, kind of aimed for the worst thing—50 per cent.”
According to Matthew Crosier, CKCU’s station manager, 20 per cent of students opted-out for the fall semester.
“It’s not as big of a number as we were expecting, but it’s still huge and we still need to make up for that, to be healthy as a station,” Laberge said.
She added that community radio plays an important role at CKCU, especially this year.
“At the station as a whole, there’s a plurality of voices,” Laberge said. “The station represents so many different points of view, cultural backgrounds and perspectives. That, in itself, is priceless to the community because you won’t find that on commercial radio.”
Diverse artists from Ottawa’s music scene came out to support the station’s benefit concert on Saturday.
The first act was 16-year-old singer-songwriter Mia Kelly. She transitioned between songs with playful anecdotes, impressing the audience with her powerful, blues-inspired vocals.
Before leaving the stage, Kelly said Indie City Madness was the “first official radio show” to play her music. She recalled her excitement after hearing her music on CKCU, but also the excitement shared between her friends.
Host Rick Vaughan, a local musician himself, agreed that airtime is valuable for new artists.
“There was nothing cooler in the world than hearing your song on the radio,” he said, in an email. “To be able to give that to a young artist or an up-and-coming artist who has never heard themselves before—now they’re turning on their car and they can hear themselves on the radio—it’s super inspiring.”
Folk-rock band Siberian Breaks was up next. The audience tapped their feet and bobbed their heads as they settled around the stage to be closer to the thumping bass.
The concert was headlined by Mehdi Cayenne, a francophone pop-punk/rock/folk/funk artist. He captured the room’s attention with his energy and expression, dancing and jumping on stage. For his grand finale, Cayenne dragged his mic stand to the center of the room, drawing the audience into a circle around him for the final song.
Saturday’s show raised a total of $350. CKCU is aiming to raise $250,000 between Oct. 25 and Nov. 17 through its annual funding drive.
“It might not have been one of our most attended events,” Vaughan said.
Feature image by Laura Blanchette.
