The summer is winding down, but Jasper is still the place to be for live music and entertainment this month. 

On Friday, Sept. 17, Amanda Rheaume will be returning to the D’ed Dog with her brand of acoustic folk/pop. 

“Sometimes there’s hints of a twang in there,” Rheaume said of her musical style. “We’re not gonna make you deaf, but it’s still going to be fun.”

Rheaume was in Jasper earlier this year and is happy to be back with a little more time to explore the area. 

“It was awesome,” Rheaume said of her last show. “We had a blast. It was one of the tour highlights actually, being in Jasper.”

This time Rheaume and her guitarist, The Legendary, have a less hectic schedule. When they last passed through they had to skip on to their next venue before exploring the area. 

“I walked around and checked out all the shops,” Rheaume said. 

When they arrive on the 17th, the two musicians will only have to venture off to Banff the following day. 

Rheaume and her guitarist are from Ottawa, and have spent the summer touring. The Jasper stop is part of a 31 day tour with 26 shows. 

“(It’s) nuts, but awesome,” Rheaume said. 

The singer is happy to make time for the Jasper crowd that welcomed her so warmly on her last stop. 

“It’s sort of a special time for me to be able to come out,” she said. 

Rheaume recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan, where she performed for the Canadian troops at the Kandahar Air Field Base with fellow Canadian band Glass Tiger. The trip inspired her to get involved with Soldier On, a foundation that helps soldiers who return from Afghanistan with injuries get involved in physical activity again. 

A dollar from every CD purchase will go to the charity and Rheaume said it isn’t about supporting the reasons for the controversial war. 

“It’s not about commenting or whether people believe or not,” she said. 

The experience was one Rheaume will not soon forget. 

“(It was) really intense, really upsetting and very educational,” she said. “When you get there it’s a whole other experience. It changed my whole life.”

When she arrived in Afghanistan, Rheaume had no idea what to expect. 

“I knew about the war and I knew I didn’t like war,” she said. 

After returning home, Rheaume got involved with Soldier On. 

“It’s an important thing for me to do now that I’m home,” she said. 

If the opportunity presented itself, Rheaume said she would go back in a second to remind the men and women that Canada is behind them. 

“They always need a little bit of home.” 

This will be Rheaume’s last tour in support of her latest CD, Kiss Me Back. She will head back into the studio to record her next CD following the tour.

On Sept. 18, the D’ed Dog will feature The Shakedowns and the Legion has some great music coming up this month with Jasper locals the Linkomatics performing on Sept. 17 and 18. The following weekend, on Sept. 24, Rae Spoon will perform. Spoon said he has travelled to Jasper many times before and has played his indie folk/electronica here at least six times at a number of venues. Spoon is touring to promote his latest album, Love Is a Hunter, that launched in August. 

“It’s a pop/folk album heavily inspired by a couple of years I spent in Europe,” Spoon said. “There is an electronic element because I learned how to make computer music in Germany.”

The album is a move away from Spoon’s former country crooning, which he said is inspired from his time travelling. 

“I was spending a lot more time in Montreal and Toronto and other urban centres,” he said. “Indie rock became more relevant to me because of this.”