About
During this time of COVID isolation, Lewis Melville & Tannis Slimmon were missing performing and seeing their friends perform, so on June 20th, 2020 they opened up their backyard in Guelph, ON to a small socially distanced audience and the rest of the world through livestream.
As mentioned in this article on GuelphToday.com, when Lewis was building the “She Shed” in their backyard a few years ago he realized it would be possible for the deck to function as a stage for concerts.
Usually summertime is so busy with folk festivals there wouldn’t be time to have a backyard concert, so as COVID-19 wore on and the outdoor gathering numbers opened up, in late June the first concert occurred (which was broadcast via Zoom to Tannis’ family members across Canada).
July included concerts featuring Laura Bird, Katherine Wheatley, the Banjo Mechanics, Boreal, and Will Melville, with a small in-person audience as we tested video angles and livestreaming software.
Since then, through trial and error, research, and support from other musicians (including Tragedy Ann‘s Braden Phelan, and the excellent YouTube instructional video by Peter Katz), the ‘Backyard Concerts’ began livestreaming to Facebook in early August of 2020.
You can watch past livestreamed concerts here on our website (via YouTube) or on the videos page on our Facebook page.