Alexisonfire Skip 'Stuffy' Juno Awards Gala to Play Rock Show

Alexisonfire, Juno Award nominees for best rock album for their hit record 'Old Crows / Young Cardinals,' were among the many musicians delayed by bad weather en route to the 2010 Juno Awards in St. John's, Newfoundland.

"It's been pretty good, to be honest," Alexisonfire lead guitarist Wade MacNeil tells Spinner from the Halifax airport about 24 hours after they first attempted to fly into this year's Juno city. "It's not like we're in the middle of nowhere -- we had a day off in Halifax. We flew to St John's then turned around and flew back, but we checked back into the same hotel, then got seafood and a few beers. Halifax is a great city, so staying here an extra day isn't like being stranded."

The Toronto-based post-hardcore band had played a Thursday night show in Halifax -- alongside friends and fellow Juno rock album nominees Billy Talent, whose flight did eventually manage to land yesterday night -- and after their original flight was grounded, they had to switch airlines in order to make their own concert Saturday night.

"[WestJet] wanted to send us out at 7PM. Some of us could have made a flight at 3PM, but we would have had to split up," MacNeil says. "It's a pretty big show, y'know? We can't just arrive without our sound guy."

As it was, their replacement flight was delayed and they were forced to miss this afternoon's annual fan meet'n'greet. "We're missing the Juno FanFare right now, we're supposed to be at that," he says, albeit not sounding overly upset. 'It's sitting next to some band you don't know with a bunch of kids being herded through. It's cool, because it's great to meet our fans, but it's kind of impersonal. So hopefully we'll just get to talk to some kids after the show."

But what about the Juno Awards themselves? Turns out Alexisonfire weren't planning to attend Saturday's non-televised portion of the awards anyway, even though their category, Rock Album of the Year, is being doled out tonight. "We're up for an award tonight and we're so confident we're not going to win that we are playing a show instead of going to the gala. The show's going to be great -- and the gala awards will be stuffy."

Though to be fair, despite winning copious critical acclaim and the 2009 XM Verge Award for Artist of the Year and Album of the Year for 'Old Crows/Young Cardinals' -- not to mention taking home the 2004 Juno Award for New Group of the Year -- MacNeil says the band is pretty sure they're gonna come up empty-handed this time out.

"We've sold a lot of records, but definitely haven't sold as many records as Nickelback [and Billy Talent]. We're in the category against those guys," he says wryly, "so we booked a show."