Shania Twain has marked the 50th anniversary of the Northern Lights Festival Boréal with a throwback photo on Instagram.
“Congratulations to Northern Lights Festival on 50 years,” she wrote. "Fond memories from my beginnings.”
The shout-out came on the first day of the 2022 edition of the festival in Sudbury, Ont., which is hyped as “Canada’s longest consecutively running music festival.”
Twain said she appeared at the NLFB in 1976. “My first ever festival! I was a little girl, with an outfit made by my grandma and handmade moccasins… on a big stage with a bunch of adults and a huge audience watching me... and a guitar that was bigger than me!!,” she wrote.
The pre-teen Eilleen Twain, who lived about 300 km north in Timmins, Ont., certainly made an impression when she performed at the festival.
“This little girl got up on the stage with a guitar and absolutely blew me away,” recalled singer Mary Bailey in 2005’s Shania Twain: The Biography by Robin Eggar.
“She sang two songs, Willie Nelson’s ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain’ and Hank Williams’ ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.’ Her voice reminded me of Tanya Tucker; it had strength and character to it, a lot of feeling. There was never a doubt in my mind that she had it; even at that young age she exuded a quiet confidence. Stars stand out.”
In her Instagram post, Twain wrote: “Looking back, that was a really intimidating environment to be in and I'm really proud of that little kid for facing my fears and braving it out – little did I know it would be a running theme in my career!”
Twain, now 56, returns to her native province on Aug. 7 to headline the Boots and Hearts Festival in Oro-Medonte.