Scotiabank Centre renovations reveal 'really cool piece of rock history'
CBC
Maintenance workers at Halifax's Scotiabank Centre made a fitting discovery in a freight elevator over the Christmas holidays.
While removing a bumper — a panel that protects the walls of the well-used elevator that transports equipment and goods in the facility — the workers found a pristine signature belonging to Steven Tyler, the lead singer of iconic rock band Aerosmith.
The Love in an Elevator and Sweet Emotion hitmakers have played at least two shows at the Halifax rink, with the last one being on Dec. 28, 1993, at what was then known as the Halifax Metro Centre. Tickets sold for $32.50.
"It's funny to be star-struck from an autograph, but it is a really cool piece of rock history to have his autograph in our facility," said Adria Young, a spokesperson for Events East, the Crown corporation that runs the Scotiabank Centre and Halifax Convention Centre.
Aerosmith has sold more than 150 million albums worldwide and is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
When the discovery was made, word about the find was spread via internal email, said Young. Some staffers even went and had their picture taken with the signature.
She said that beginning in the late 1980s, performers and bands would occasionally take this specific freight elevator as a means of getting from the loading bay to the arena.
Over time, people wrote their signatures on the wall.
"It just became sort of this funny little custom that people would do," said Young.
She said some longtime staffers remember signatures from people such as Guns N' Roses singer Axl Rose and Canadian rocker Bryan Adams.
Young said the wall may have had signatures from artists such as Neil Young, Billy Idol and Alice Cooper, but over time, staff members such as maintenance workers, caterers and security guards also signed the wall, which became unsightly.
Young said the wall was painted over in the late 1990s, with the Steven Tyler signature being one of the only ones preserved.
The photo of the Tyler autograph shows parts of another autograph, but it's unclear who it belongs to.
Besides the walls being painted over, bumpers were installed to better protect the elevator walls from being damaged.
After three weeks on the road in Yellowknife doing Inuvialuktun translation for the Northwest Territories legislative assembly, Lillian Elias says she's tired and ready to go home to Inuvik.
Metrolinx is reporting "significant" delays to several GO train lines late Monday afternoon due to a police investigation.
The federal government is spending $14.3 million to support over two dozen Yukon organizations and First Nations governments with arts, culture and language programming.
The war in the Middle East, the fear that it could escalate and the economic consequences were top of mind as Prime Minister Mark Carney met his British counterpart Monday in the United Kingdom at the tail of a whirlwind trip to Europe.
Alberta and Czechia will host the fourth edition of the World Cup of Hockey, a country-versus-country hockey tournament set to hit the ice in February 2028, the NHL announced Monday.
The Ontario government has confirmed it is cutting provincial funding for seven supervised drug consumption sites, days after harm reduction advocates said they were notified of the decision.
In the sprawling labyrinth of shops and showrooms in the Chinese city of Yiwu, parts of what’s widely known as the "world’s supermarket" are beginning to look more like a world-class warehouse.
The lawyer representing Umar Zameer, a man cleared in the death of a Toronto police officer two years ago, says he has "serious misgivings" about an upcoming report into the conduct of several officers involved in the case.
The system behind the emergency department wait times Winnipeggers see online had multiple flaws that made waits sometimes appear lower than they should, an internal memo shows.
Police on the west coast of Newfoundland say a 27-year-old woman was arrested on Friday night for impaired and dangerous driving, after being caught speeding down the main road in the rural community of Piccadilly at 88 km/h over the speed limit.
Scientists are seeing tropical fish in Nova Scotia with more frequency, and their arrival is prompting concerns about what their presence could mean for local species down the road.
New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says health care won’t be exempt from her efforts to cut spending — even though her health minister says big spending increases will be unavoidable in coming years.
Pierre Ny St-Amand, the man who drove a bus into a Laval daycare in 2023, killing two young children and injuring six others, has been declared a high-risk accused.