While Winnipeg has been in a cold snap for a better part of two weeks, most Winnipeggers have been staying home to keep warm. For some concert-goers, the mid -30 Celsius evening of February 6, 2019, wasn’t enough to keep them from making their way to The Pyramid Cabaret for a lineup spotlighting the talents of both Tyler Shaw and Sara Diamond.
To commence the evening, Montreal pop/R&B artist, Sara Diamond, made her presence known to the Winnipeg audience with her soulful and powerful voice mixed with her sultry R&B style. Diamond hit the Pyramid Cabaret stage promptly at 8:45 with a magnificent set of songs new and old. She performed songs off her recently released EP, Foreword, with the likes of, “Know My Name,” “Colors,” and “Fool.” She concluded her performance with a brand new song called “Ride” that she stated will drop in March.
Diamond first made her rise to fame approximately ten years ago with a brief stint in the mid-2000’s pop-rock girl group, Clique Girlz. More recently, she was featured on the lead single, “Firestorm,” from the Montreal electronic duo, Adventure Club’s debut album, Red // Blue. Putting her back in the spotlight, she went on to tour with Canadian pop artist, [SEBELL] across Canada in February 2018. Throughout the rest of 2018, Diamond continued to work on new music, which resulted in what is now her new EP, Foreward, that was released on October 26, 2018. After the wonderful performance from Sara Diamond, the Coquitlam, British Columbia pop artist, Tyler Shaw, made his way to the stage in a memorable fashion. As his band started performing on stage, without Shaw in sight, on stage nor around the venue, you could hear his voice as his opening number, “Cautious,” rang out in The Pyramid Cabaret. A few seconds later, Shaw appeared at the back of the venue adjacent to the venue’s bar, then proceeded to make his way to the stage through the audience.
All photos by Samuel Stevens Photography.
Winnipeg was the last date of Shaw’s west coast leg of his Intuition Tour, which saw Shaw touring to promote his sophomore album of the same name. Shaw performed a perfect mix of new and old songs throughout his set including “Overthink,” “The Wall,” “To the Man Who Let Her Go,” and his current single, “With You.” Shaw performed a few fan favourites with the likes of “Kiss Goodnight,” and “House of Cards,” both off his debut album, Yesterday. Following “To the Man Who Let Her Go,” an audience member held up a sign reading “It’s her B-Day → ,” which lead Shaw to perform an impromptu singing of “Happy Birthday” to the birthday girl in attendance. Lastly, Shaw also performed a cover of Post Malone’s 2018 single, “Better Now,” during his time on The Pyramid Cabaret stage. Shortly after Shaw’s set, he made his way to the merch table to the right of the stage to sign autographs, take pictures, and talk with the fans who wanted to. While I was conversing with a couple of other concert-goers inside the venue after the show, I noticed Tyler hanging out with two girls in the middle of the venue. Tyler pulled his guitar out and said, “They missed the show, I’m going to sing them a song” to the few remaining people inside the venue. He began to perform an acoustic rendition of his debut single, “Kiss Goodnight,” for the two girls who sadly missed the performance due to a car accident on their way to the show.