Greg Neufeld on Tour With Civeda and Suzie McNeil

Civeda is rock on ice

By Jessica Murdy - Chilliwack Progress
Published: January 15, 2009 6:00 PM


It’s been a few years since sweet Suzie McNeil rocked it up on a little show called Rock Star: INXS. But it’s been a busy few years, and she’s still working her rock star butt off.

She was a favourite on the reality series, and was the last woman standing. (JD Fortune went on to win, and to front INXS.)

But since that experience, she hasn’t fizzled. There was no slinking away. No giving up. She kept on working, backing up Pink on her I’m Not Dead tour across North America and recording two albums to date. The most recent, Rock N’ Roller, was released in November and features her hit song Believe.

But the reason she’ll be touring this winter is to take part in an innovative rock show that combines ice skating, circus acts and live music. The show is called Civeda, and will tour Canada coast to coast. And the first stop for the show is right here in Chilliwack at the Prospera Centre, January 29.

McNeil and a long list of others will be in town for the five days prior to the show’s opening date, rehearsing all the choreography together for the first time.

“The idea was to combine the music and the ice dancing together,” McNeil told the Progress this week. “So they’ll be helping to tell the story (to go along with the music).”

For now, the dance performers are rehearsing the choreography to McNeil’s tracks, along with hits by Canadian Idol finalists Carly Rae Jepsen, Greg Neufeld and Ashley Leitao. But by opening night, the two different art forms will become one.

“We will be taking people on a journey and it’s something I’m really excited about,” she says.

As for McNeil, the singer/songwriter, she’s busy writing songs for a third album in the near future.

“The second one was grueling,” she says, but she’s determined to do it again. Living between her Canadian home of Toronto, and her working home in L.A., she says her real home lately has been her suitcase.

But she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to join Civeda. She’ll take any opportunity to promote her own material, something she has made certain sacrifices for. When the tour with Pink ended, McNeil was offered the chance to tour Europe with her.

“After a lot of thinking, I said, I think I’d rather do my own thing,” she recalls. “If you’re an artist it’s sort of in your blood and in your bones. It’s the struggle of being an artist, and being your own artist. It’s so much more rewarding emotionally (to perform your own music.)”

While singing back up was “like a job” with the security and ease of not being in charge, it just wasn’t enough to fulfill her creativity. So, she left Pink and struck out on her own.

“It was a great learning experience and good to see how a big machine like that works,” she says.

Tickets for the show are $24.75, $45 and $65, depending on seating.

Tickets for Civeda are available through Ticketmaster’s website. For more information, visit www.civeda.ca.