Cape Breton's top talent pay tribute to Rita MacNeil at sold-out show

Famed Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac pays tribute to Rita MacNeil at Sydney's Centre 200 on Monday, May 6, 2013. (CTV Atlantic)

Thousands of friends and fans gathered in Sydney Monday night to pay tribute to Cape Breton’s first lady of song.

Rita MacNeil died on April 16 following complications from surgery at the age of 68.

Last night, several Maritime performers performed to a sold-out crowd of 5,000 people at Sydney’s Centre 200 in memory of the Maritime music legend.

“We all want to say how much we love and admire Rita,” said concert organizer Joella Foulds as she took the stage.

Famed Cape Breton fiddler Ashley MacIsaac took the stage along with Rita’s bandmate Kim Dunn. Other performances included a long list of Cape Breton’s finest talents, including the Barra MacNeils, J.P. Cormier and Matt Minglewood.

“She was a woman who dared,” said musician Doris Mason. “She had a wonderful spirit.”

“She could go out tonight and still floor this place,” said Minglewood. “Whether it was her heyday or not, she still had it. She still had that presence when she walked out on stage.”

“It would be impossible to be a musician in Cape Breton, no matter what kind of music you play, without having absorbed some of what she put out there,” said Ian MacDougall of the Tom Fun Orchestra.

The concert also included a performance of “Working Man” from MacNeil’s longtime friends, the Men of the Deeps, with whom she took the stage many times over the span of her career.

“When we walk down that aisle, as we’ve done over 200 times with Rita, we’re going to be thinking of her,” said band member Jim MacLellan before taking the stage. “I imagine her picture is going to be up on the screen and it’s going to be hard to hold back.”

Tickets to the show were $10 with proceeds going to a scholarship fund created in MacNeil's name for students in the new music degree program at Cape Breton University.

“It’s a concert of the people, for the people,” said Mason. “She touched everyone.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Ryan MacDonald