A host of big-name acts suggest Moncton may have turned a corner in quest to become Atlantic concert mecca

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It's not just some concerts. It's a full-blown Iconic Convergence.

Country legend George Jones is set to perform in Moncton April 16.

Bob Dylan is expected to play the Moncton Coliseum soon, as will George Jones, Anne Murray and George Thorogood. Eternal Canadian music icon Leonard Cohen and latter-day Canadian music icon Matthew Good are playing separate shows downwtown the same night in May. April Wine will play The Rockin' Rodeo the same night Anne Murray's in town and Bluegrass legend Dan Timynski will play the new Wesleyan centre in May.

And, of course, this August, we expect to host the worst-kept secret in the Canadian concert business this year.

That's when the Eagles may or may not hit the Magnetic Hill concert site, a show that's already been reported in newspapers from Halifax to Victoria despite nothing ever being officially confirmed.

What's up with this Iconic Convergence? Has the Metro Moncton music scene now fully come of age? And never mind all this talk about Elton John possibly making Moncton another Sudbury with a concert widely rumoured to happen some time late this year?

Monica MacKenzie's not sure what's up with all the concert news, but she's one music fan who says she's happy to ride Moncton's rising tide of live music. The self-described concert junkie has been to more than 40 concerts in her "29 or so" years, often travelling to Montreal or Toronto to catch some of the bigger names. But now she can see a lot of her old favourites and adopt some new favourites here at home.

She said yesterday she planned to go to every one of the upcoming shows except the Anne Murray concert (ouch, sorry about that, Ms. Murray) and Leonard Cohen.

"I reallllly wanted to see Leonard Cohen too, but couldn't get tickets," she said, her inflection indicating "really" should be spelled with at least that many l's. The Cohen concert sold out in about 20 minutes last Thursday.

Monica said she is nevertheless plenty happy to see Matthew Good at Oxygen that night instead. She even plans to take in the George Jones show, describing the country crooner as both "authentic," and you guessed it, "an icon."

"And if the Eagles do come, I'm there for sure."

She's likely not alone, as mere rumour or not, the Magnetic Hill Eagles gig is already being described as one of Canada's big concert events of the year.

"Despite the downturn in the U.S. economy, the concert industry has performed well in Canada, partly because of the steady stream of major acts looking to cultivate new territory," said the Ottawa Citizen this week. "The Rolling Stones played Regina a couple of summers ago, Elton John landed in Sudbury this month, and word is that the Eagles are considering Moncton this summer. Shows like those are guaranteed to sell out."

The Citizen seems to be onto something. Metro Moncton's appeal just might be that it's a new territory, if not an old territory being rediscovered.

Ask anyone who's been here a while and you'll hear how major acts routinely included Moncton on their tours in the 1970s and 80s. Then came a long period where Moncton got passed by.

There were likely a number of reasons for that, but one is certainly the aging Moncton Coliseum. Its roof is not quite as low as the Main Street subway, but it's had the same chilling effect on 18-wheelers over the years, specifically the ones that haul around the elaborate light shows used by big name acts. For a time, Moncton's music scene was moribund.

Then, as everyone knows, the Rolling Stones prevented us from gathering any more moss when they descended for the biggest show of their North American tour in 2005, and the city's been gathering momentum since.

With the music recording industry in trouble because of internet downloading, concert touring has become even more of a money maker in recent years. Where musicians once toured in support of their albums, they now release new music in support of their tours.

And thankfully for Monica MacKenzie and everyone else in our region who likes live music, Metro Moncton is increasingly finding itself in the crosshairs of that continental concert crisscrossing.

Let's all enjoy that, and get out to support the shows that come our way. And let's hope Sir Elton is also taking aim at our community.