Country artists Elyse Saunders and Alexa Goldie are fresh off their performances at Boots and Hearts 2024, which they agree was a dream experience made even better by enthusiastic fans.
Now in its 12th year, Boots and Hearts has become the largest country music festival in Canada. This year’s event ran from August 8 to 11 at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte. Jason Aldean, Matchbox Twenty and Cody Johnson were among the headliners for the festival, which kicked off with an emerging artist showcase on Thursday evening. Goldie, a Kingston, Ont. native who moved to Nashville, was one of seven finalists in the showcase.
“Any chance to perform at Boots and Hearts on one of those stages was a dream for me,” Goldie said. “I had been to the festival [for the] six years prior, so this was my seventh year going and being able to be on the stage alongside so many talented artists is so cool.”
Goldie said it was wild to be able to open for Lonestar, Midland and Shantaia as part of the showcase. Before she went out on stage, the crowd started chanting her name. It felt surreal standing backstage, nerves building.
The anxiety turned to excitement when she saw people wearing her merch and singing along to her songs, including her recent single “Bad Boy”. She even had fans say they’d been following her from festival to festival throughout the summer. She said she’d love to do it all again, but she hopes in the future to be part of the main lineup.
“Being a part of a competition is a little bit different than being called back as an artist, so that’s on my bucket list for the next few years,” she said. “I would love to do it.”
She enjoyed the rest of the festival weekend with her mom, a tradition they had made in the years before she took the stage. They went back and forth between the two stages, aiming to catch every artist. They took in as much of the festival as possible with the exception of the rides, as Goldie admits she’s scared of them.
Though she’s familiar with the festival, being a performer has changed the experience. Fans asked her for photos and autographs as she walked around, and an artist pass got her backstage at the shows.
The excitement from fans is what defined the festival for her, especially during her set. Energy from the audience is what drives her performance, and the crowd at Boots and Hearts was up to the task.
“I was probably the highest energy I’ve ever been just because of them,” Goldie said. “Looking out, everyone was jumping, their arms were up in the air, everyone was hooting and hollering. We have loudspeakers up there on stage, but you could hear straight through them with all the audience singing along.”
Goldie is heading to a few more festivals to round out the summer, opening for Jade Eagleson and Gord Bamford. She also has a new single, “Cheat Time”, coming out later this month and a music video to follow soon after.
Elyse Saunders, a singer-songwriter from Peterborough, also started out in the audience at Boots and Hearts.
“I was on the other side, in the audience, several years ago watching Thomas Rhett, and I imagined playing the stage one day,” Saunders said. “It was cool to be officially on the lineup these years later, and Thomas Rhett was the headliner.”
Saunders said it was a dream and a full-circle moment. Being an artist at the event is different, of course, since she got the chance to see behind the scenes, but the energy at Boots and Hearts is “awesome on both sides of the stage.”
She and her band had a blast and want to keep coming back every year. They pay a great deal of credit to the event staff who made the festival happen. Along with being a well-oiled machine that kept things running smoothly, the team went above and beyond to make the artists feel welcome.
“It seems really evident that they pick a staff of people that are really easy to work with, very friendly, very accommodating,” she said. “They really put a lot of effort into the small touches that really do go a long way to make us feel at home and comfortable, and when that happens, it makes us ready for the stage and puts us in the right mindset.”
After her set, she ran down to the gate to meet fans and give autographs. She ended up signing several pairs of boots, a fitting way to commemorate the festival. Her family tagged along for the performance, so she said it was special to see new and familiar fans in the crowd alongside her loved ones.
During the rest of the festival, she talked to members of the media, spent time with other artists and enjoyed the live music. She got to see another Thomas Rhett show, this time with an artist pass. She was running on adrenaline after some sleepless nights leading up to the festival, but she was determined to make the most of it.
Saunders said country music has some of the best fans out there, and the sweet people she’s encountered are no exception. She has a new song coming out in September and an exciting tour announcement to make in the near future. For now, she’s riding on the high of hearing the audience sing her song, “Never Have I Ever”, back to her.
“As a songwriter and as an artist, that’s how I know I’m doing my job is [if] my music is connecting to people and making them feel something,” Saunders said. “I love being an entertainer and giving people that experience, and then to have them give that back to me, that was definitely a gift and something I won’t forget.”
For more information on Boots and Hearts, visit the festival website.
