
This weekend is your last chance to visit one of Vancouver’s best loved watering holes, The Yale. The city’s only surviving building from the great fire of 1886 has stood at the southern entrance to downtown for 130 years. Beginning its life as a rooming house for Canadian Pacific Railway workers the venerable Yale taking a short rest.
Rize Alliance Properties is redeveloping the block for The Rolston residences and will be including a seismic and heritage upgrade to preserve The Yale bar and the accompanying social housing rooms. Anticipated to reopen sometime in early 2013, music director Joe Luciak says they’re spending “over $1million to make it look old”…”like it did 130 years ago”.
For the last 30 years The Yale has been Vancouver’s

home of rhythm and blues, hosting some of the genre’s greatest names John Lee Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, Powder Blues, Pinetop Perkins, Jeff Healy and Long John Baldry to name a few. This week The Yale is celebrating it’s 130th anniversary with a week long series of “Best Of” shows, before closing for the redevelopment.
This weekend’s lineup includes:
Friday, November 18 / 9pm:
The Best of Electric Blues Guitar with David Gogo, Tim Vaughan, Jimmy D Lane, & James Rogers
Saturday, November 19 / 3-7pm:
The Best of Aboriginal Blues with Murray Porter Band, Bitterly Divine & Sean “Blues Puppy” Riquelme
Saturday, November 19 / 9pm:
The Best of Rockin’ Soul Blues with All-Star Blues Revue with Rob Montgomery, Jerry Doucette, Joani Bye, Nadine States, Murray Porter, Steve Werbicki, Dave Barton, Darrell Mayes, Kenny Boychuk, Pete Sweetzir, & more!
Sunday, November 20 / 2-6pm:
Big Band Blues with Dal Richards Orchestra featuring Jim Byrnes

Sunday, November 20 / 9pm:
The Best of R&B, Soul and Blues with Brickhouse, Bill Johnson, Harpdog Brown, John Lee Sanders, Mike Van Eyes, & special guests
Tickets are available by calling The Yale at 604.681.9253 or online at www.theyale.ca