Twenty years ago, Toronto was reeling from the deadly SARS epidemic that severely impacted the local economy.
As the World Health Organization declared the global outbreak contained and travel advisories for Canada's largest city were lifted, efforts immediately began to bring people back to Toronto -- and one of the country's biggest music events was born.
SARSfest snowballed into one of the most significant events in Toronto’s history, giving residents and tourists assurance that normal life in the city was back. Initially, the concert was pitched as a government-funded event, which was heavily criticized at the time."They wanted no part of me because I was suggesting that we the government step up. And then finally when we got Molson’s involved, everybody came on side."
This included convincing Bombardier, which owned the airstrip at the concert grounds, to hold off on shipping their planes out because organizers required an extra day to build the sound infrastructure.“Here it is 20 years later, and people come up to me and say: ‘I was there, I had a great time,’” he said.One of the performers at SARSfest was Toronto-based country rock band Blue Rodeo.
Cuddy has since looked back at broadcasts of the event and has vivid memories of looking out at the crowd and the energy the band received during their approximately 20-minute set. They had heard about the concert only days before and felt they had to go because of the cheap ticket prices and the prospect of seeing AC/DC and The Rolling Stones.
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