Dwight d'Eon gets a huge welcome at home on the weekend

By Tina Comeau

THE YARMOUTH VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

After having the chance to see him home in person on the weekend, Dwight d’Eon supporters will go back to seeing him on television tonight as the Top 4 sing the standards on Canadian Idol.

“That’s going to be fun,” d’Eon said Saturday in an interview with the Yarmouth Vanguard/NovaNewsNow.com about the theme picked for this week’s show.

“It’s a completely different style of music that I’ve never tackled before so it’s like an education, learning how these people back in the day used to sing their songs,” he explained.

The Idol contestants are getting some help in preparing for this week’s musical genre from singer Paul Anka.

But while d’Eon supporters are settling in for another performance night – to be followed up by two hours of voting where they hope the busy signals will give them a break this week – most are still talking about Saturday’s event at the Mariners Centre.

All four remaining Idol contestants got the chance to go to their respective homes over the weekend. For d’Eon it meant an outdoor concert with his band Never on the grounds of the Mariners Centre where thousands of people turned out to show their support.

D’Eon has heard about the support from home, but Saturday was the first time he got to see the magnitude of it in person. He was both humbled and grateful.

“It’s been overwhelming and I’m awestruck by it,” d’Eon said. “Even now it hasn’t hit me that they’re only here for one reason, the fact I’m in town. It’s their way of showing their support, but I feel it’s also my way of showing them…thank you so much for voting all of this time.”

The size of the crowd was only one of the surprises on Saturday. The other one came when Argyle Warden Aldric d’Entremont announced, on behalf of the citizens of Pubnico, that a street in West Pubnico was going to be renamed Dwights Way.

D’Eon was presented with a street sign, although afterwards the warden said they hadn’t yet decided which road would be renamed.

Saturday was definitely a made-for-TV event. The crowd was told where to move, where to stand, and CTV producers did their best to whip people in a frenzy – not that any additional help was needed on that front.

The crowd also didn’t seem to mind that d’Eon and his band performed one song twice. Once for them and the television cameras and then a second time, again for them and the television cameras.

But while CTV producers were concerned with getting the right shots, they were also concerned about crowd control and ensuring that people didn’t crush one another, particularly in the hot, humid weather. At least one young person at the scene was overwhelmed by the heat and the crowd and had to be attended to by paramedics.

When it came time for the autograph session, the crowd was told repeatedly that if they didn’t back up to give everyone some breathing room, d’Eon would be taken away. Argyle MLA Chris d’Entremont, also the province’s health minister, broke into a playful chant of “Back them up! Back them up!” when the crowd kept squeezing in too tight.

But with the help of security guards and volunteers on site, the scene quickly turned into an orderly autograph session, with d’Eon himself wanting to ensure that everyone who wanted an autograph was able to get one.

Posing for pictures with the Idol hopeful was another matter, as that seemed to slow the pace of the line down.

Whether or not any footage from the weekend airs on Canadian Idol depends.

A producer on site said the intention is to air the footage during the Top 3 week, which is one results show away, meaning one of the four home-town rallies filmed on the weekend won’t be seen on the show.

Meanwhile, while there are those that love Canadian Idol, there are others who question whether the show, insofar as being a singing competition, has legitimacy since whether or not a contestant gets through sometimes seems as much, or more, to do with how many votes they get, as opposed to how they performed on the show.

Even d’Eon admits the show is part talent, part popularity contest.

But sometimes it’s beyond than that. One site on the Internet urges people to vote for the finalist on the show that it deems to be the worst in terms of talent. This season the site has zeroed in on Alberta teen Jaydee Bixby.

Mostly for d’Eon, he sees the show as a unique opportunity for would-be musicians to get national exposure. Which, he also admits, is something not every deserving artist is fortunate to receive.

“There are a lot of bands out there, a lot of artists, that don’t get a chance to have their great music heard, and there’s a lot of great music out there,” he said, saying for whatever reason often record companies and radio stations don’t pick up on some deserving artists.

“I think it’s all about a familiarity thing. If you do the stuff that’s a little off and fans are not familiar with your music, you don’t stand a fighting chance, that’s the reality of the world that we live in.”

D’Eon hopes that besides helping him and others on the show to launch music careers, that Idol also opens the public’s eyes to the fact that there is a lot of home-grown talent and lesser known bands that haven’t been given a fair shake from the industry or the public. On one of his Idol blogs early on in the process, when d’Eon was asked by a fan what type of theme he’d like to see on the show, he said he’d like to see contestants perform music of indie or lesser-known bands.

On the subject of bands, Saturday was the first time in months that d’Eon and his band Never performed together. It was nearly as overwhelming for his band mates to see the public’s reaction to d’Eon, as it was for d’Eon himself, although Adam Driscoll, who plays the electric violin in the band, said they sort of knew what to expect. Driscoll says being close to home they’ve been privy to the support, whereas d’Eon has only had verbal reports to go by.

“To see him come back and actually see the support that is behind him…he knows people are supporting him by the number of votes and keeping him in (the competition) but this is unbelievable,” said Driscoll, who was one of the people to encourage d’Eon to audition for Idol in the first place.

“It was a phone call to him at work the night before and I said, ‘Listen Dwight, did you know you can bring an instrument, you can bring your guitar? There was a pause on the other end of the line and he said ‘Really?’ and I knew then he was going to go for it,” said Driscoll.

D’Eon, meanwhile, says while this experience has been life changing for him, one thing hasn’t changed.

“I’m still the same guy from Pubnico,” he says.

The same guy who’s now going to have a street named after him.