We’ve all been there: a table in that favourite pub littered with the lovingly emptied and often toppled remnants of far too many beers, shoulder to shoulder with old friends and those just met shouting out the words to the off-key warbles of a cover band’s somewhat sketchy rendition of “Hey Jude.”
In Toronto, we love our cover bands, but with a world-class twist. They are unique, spirited and, not to toot our own municipal horn so early in an article, but a lot better than most other cities’. And they have moved from entertaining dozens in cramped basement bars to thousands in the best live music venues in the city.
At the moment, there are none bigger than Dwayne Gretzky, which plays two nearly sold-out nights at the Phoenix Concert Theatre on May 12 and 13 — capacity 1,350.
Other bands hitting the same stage this month include the Wailers, of Bob Marley fame; British soul singer Michael Kiwanuka; and punk legends Lagwagon.
But it started out, as many good things do, as a few friends from different bands getting together to play some songs at a rehearsal space just for fun.
“We just started playing songs by, like, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen with our friends for fun as a side thing,” says Nick Rose, a member of former next-big-thing Canadian band Sweet Thing.
“But once we’d learned a bunch, we decided to put on a low-stakes show at the Dakota. We didn’t have a name, and we just invited friends and had a covers night. And it was really fun, and we just sort of booked a few more.”
Next was a residency at the city’s favourite basement, the Dakota. And lineups started snaking around the corner.
“It was really surprising when we saw the lineup,” says Rose. “It was this moment of, what the hell is this, why is everyone here?”
Here’s the thing. Dwayne Gretzky is made up of a rotating cast of stellar musicians who already have original music projects large and small underway.
The resumes of current and former band members include such Canadian music heavies as July Talk, Rural Alberta Advantage, Born Ruffians, Danko Jones and many more.
They don’t need this to fulfill some inherent need to make music. They want this. They own the songs because they love them, and it’s as much fun for the band as it is for the crowd.
“We do it in a joyful and honest way,” says Rose.
“The biggest thing really is that we do a good job of curating a night of music, not unlike what a good DJ would do. We are very careful about song selection and choose good material that is familiar to a lot of people.”
And the same can be said for other uniquely Toronto cover bands like, say, Choir! Choir! Choir!, which is obviously more a giant cover vocal ensemble than a band. But it also started out in a bar and has now played festivals and Massey Hall.
Or the former all-female cover band Sheezer, which gained serious notoriety across town for playing only Weezer covers. And, of course, Vag Halen, the art project–cum–music group that puts a feminist slant on dude-centric hard rock classics.
Notice a trend? This ain’t your grandpa’s wedding band. And this is Toronto, a city positively littered with incredible talent.
“There does seem to be a bigger appetite for this now then there was five years ago,” says Rose.
“We didn’t create this by design. We didn’t set out to become some kind of wedding band. It just evolved.”
At one point, Rose estimates the band had covered 400 songs over the past five years, with at least 80 at their fingertips on any given night. But like any good band, some have become staples of their repertoire.
“‘Under Pressure,’ by Queen, has such an emotional apex. It always has a place at the end of the second set where there is this euphoric moment,” says Rose.
“You can’t not play that one. And ‘You Can Call Me Al,’ by Paul Simon is a favourite, along with ‘Dancing in the Dark,’ by Springsteen, we will play because it’s hard not to.”
This month, the band is back for their fourth annual spring shows featuring music of the ’90s, dubbed Big Shiny Dwayne after the once popular MuchMusic compilations from that era, an era populated by a unique and luckily mostly forgotten phenomenon: the boy band. But don’t be surprised if tunes by Backstreet Boys or someone else of their harmonizing ilk make the set list.
“Some things are just a guilty pleasure,” Rose admits. “Last year, we did ‘I Want It That Way,’ by Backstreet Boys, and frankly that was very fun. I’m a big fan of Max Martin, the Swedish songwriter behind all those big hits by Top 40 people.”
Other bands that have made past Big Shiny Dwayne nights and are Rose’s favourites include Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android,” and Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So.”
For live music fans in Toronto, these cover bands are also a guilty pleasure. We love our July Talk and our Arkells and our Metric and Our Broken Social Scene. But sometimes we just want to hear our favourites of a bygone era sung with such gusto that you just can’t help but sing along with a thousand of your best friends for that one night.
Go, have your fun.
