Johnny 99 is opening the Oct. 19 show, Live Nation Ontario announced, telling ticket-holders not to “miss out” on the date.
Support announcements are usually housekeeping — the kind of post that scrolls past most feeds. This one still matters to the band on the receiving end of it: it puts a Toronto roots act on a Live Nation Ontario bill, which is not where Johnny 99 spent its summer.
That summer was club-sized. The band shared a Horseshoe Tavern bill on Aug. 22 with Texas songwriter Vincent Neil Emerson and Oregon’s Kassi Valazza, according to Concert Archives, which logged full setlists for both touring acts that night and none for Johnny 99.
The Horseshoe has been the proving ground for bills like that one since 1947, when the tavern opened on Queen Street West and became a fixture of the city’s roots and country circuit.
The band’s name will ring a bell for a different audience. “Johnny 99” is the second track on Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 acoustic album Nebraska, a song narrated by a laid-off auto worker in Mahwah, New Jersey, who lands in prison for killing a night clerk.
Live Nation Ontario is the Canadian arm of Live Nation Entertainment, the largest concert promoter in the world, so “support added” on its account travels further than a club listing does.
For a band that spent August third on a three-act Horseshoe lineup, Oct. 19 is a bigger room and a shorter set — and a crowd that bought tickets before it knew who would open.
