Good can still come from radio
Who ever said anything along the lines of “radio is absolutely useless” deserves a slap across the face.
This completely biased statement is the direct repercussion of a track my ears stumbled across as my hand flirted with the dial in my roommates 2004 Chrysler Neon.
I won't mention the station, it sits somewhere between 9.58 and 9.60, but really that is here nor there. The station aired a song that immediately barked out the line “Oh The Boss is Coming!”
I was so enticed, I bit back.
I drove around the block two or three times until the announcer came back from commercial to introduce me to a Hamilton band called Arkells. Their punch-in-the-face track was titled the same as the previously mentioned lyric and roared in my head for the next couple of days.
Wading through their bios and brochures I discovered the four students from McMaster University would be playing a gig at London's Call The Office. Upon my discovery, I found out that they would be co-headlining with another Canadian act, The Waking Eyes (another artist I can thank the radio for). On top of that, the show cost only five dollars.
This led me to concert a couple of Saturdays ago. I had to go. It would be a sin against the musical gods if I didn't attend this.
And being raised by a catholic/Beatlemaniac, it would have been blasphemy. So I went...and oh man. The club had a perfect crowd, the opening band, We Are The Take, blew my expectations away, and The Waking Eyes provided an over the top set, for a band who's lead singer was under the weather.
But la pièce de résistance was the fan favourite Arkells. Opening with an explosive anthem in “Deadlines”, the band roared through an absolutely intense set that had everyone moving right until they finished off with their hit single, ‘The Boss'.
“We played so many years with shows where just a few of our friends or our family came” Max Kerman, the lead singer of the band admitted. “But we were never playing to people we didn't know”.
Kerman appreciated the support, but suggests the band members would use the early gigs to play for themselves.
“That's kind of where our live show started; just playing with each other, looking at each other, you know just trying to have as much fun as we could,” Kerman continued. “So now that people are coming [to the shows] and singing along, we feel spoiled and it's really cool, we just try and relish as much as we can.”
This is the first tour the Arkells have had where they are one of the headliners and the first tour they are supporting an album, Jackson Square (a first for them as well). “So we have no idea kind of what the results were going to be,” Kerman admitted. “But the first four shows so far have exceeded our expectations.”
The front man smiles as he remembers how much he was laughing on stage during the show at CTO.
“This London show was by far the craziest show we have ever played,” the lead singer conceded with a marveled look on his mug.
For five dollars, it was the craziest show I have ever been to. If I knew what was in store for the night, I would have paid $50. All three bands took the stage for an encore to perform the Beatles 1979 hit ‘Don't Let Me Down', which gave me goose bumps as I gripped my bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon and gives me goose bumps writing this very sentence. The show was absolutely amazing.
Also it turns out Kerman is a huge Beatles fan, which explains the encore and explains their track, ‘John Lennon'.
“[The verse] I'm John Lennon in 67' is just trying to remember to look at the bright side of things. Because sometimes, you know, you can be around a lot of great things and you forget, so it's about remembering how fortunate you are”
After the show Max and his band begun their venture into somewhat foreign territory. Currently the band is on the West Coast, still with the Waking Eyes by their side. Kerman is glad he is doing this tour with another Canadian band, even though they just met days before the tour kicked off.
“I think all Canadian musicians kind of have a similar sense of the underdog,” Kerman suggests. “Everyone's always working really hard, everyone takes it really seriously, and everyone wants to have a good time too. So, I think we all kind of have that bond together.”
He went on to compliment the Waking eyes, praising their song writing and describing them as “the kind of guys I'd want to hang out with anyway.”
Kerman described their success as a natural progression and seems to be a lot more excited to travel to countries than play four times a month in Hamilton.
But this article's purpose isn't to advocate that radio rocks (obviously it does) or to tempt you to go see a band that is on the other side of the country. What I'm saying is keep your eyes peeled and your ears open to opportunities, like a five dollar concert at a local pub, which might just happen to change your life in the tiniest way possible. But if I have happened to seduce you into the awesome sounds of Arkells, don't worry. Guess which band is opening for the Tragically Hip come July 23 in Harris Park?
This completely biased statement is the direct repercussion of a track my ears stumbled across as my hand flirted with the dial in my roommates 2004 Chrysler Neon.
I won't mention the station, it sits somewhere between 9.58 and 9.60, but really that is here nor there. The station aired a song that immediately barked out the line “Oh The Boss is Coming!”
I was so enticed, I bit back.
I drove around the block two or three times until the announcer came back from commercial to introduce me to a Hamilton band called Arkells. Their punch-in-the-face track was titled the same as the previously mentioned lyric and roared in my head for the next couple of days.
Wading through their bios and brochures I discovered the four students from McMaster University would be playing a gig at London's Call The Office. Upon my discovery, I found out that they would be co-headlining with another Canadian act, The Waking Eyes (another artist I can thank the radio for). On top of that, the show cost only five dollars.
This led me to concert a couple of Saturdays ago. I had to go. It would be a sin against the musical gods if I didn't attend this.
And being raised by a catholic/Beatlemaniac, it would have been blasphemy. So I went...and oh man. The club had a perfect crowd, the opening band, We Are The Take, blew my expectations away, and The Waking Eyes provided an over the top set, for a band who's lead singer was under the weather.
But la pièce de résistance was the fan favourite Arkells. Opening with an explosive anthem in “Deadlines”, the band roared through an absolutely intense set that had everyone moving right until they finished off with their hit single, ‘The Boss'.
“We played so many years with shows where just a few of our friends or our family came” Max Kerman, the lead singer of the band admitted. “But we were never playing to people we didn't know”.
Kerman appreciated the support, but suggests the band members would use the early gigs to play for themselves.
“That's kind of where our live show started; just playing with each other, looking at each other, you know just trying to have as much fun as we could,” Kerman continued. “So now that people are coming [to the shows] and singing along, we feel spoiled and it's really cool, we just try and relish as much as we can.”
This is the first tour the Arkells have had where they are one of the headliners and the first tour they are supporting an album, Jackson Square (a first for them as well). “So we have no idea kind of what the results were going to be,” Kerman admitted. “But the first four shows so far have exceeded our expectations.”
The front man smiles as he remembers how much he was laughing on stage during the show at CTO.
“This London show was by far the craziest show we have ever played,” the lead singer conceded with a marveled look on his mug.
For five dollars, it was the craziest show I have ever been to. If I knew what was in store for the night, I would have paid $50. All three bands took the stage for an encore to perform the Beatles 1979 hit ‘Don't Let Me Down', which gave me goose bumps as I gripped my bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon and gives me goose bumps writing this very sentence. The show was absolutely amazing.
Also it turns out Kerman is a huge Beatles fan, which explains the encore and explains their track, ‘John Lennon'.
“[The verse] I'm John Lennon in 67' is just trying to remember to look at the bright side of things. Because sometimes, you know, you can be around a lot of great things and you forget, so it's about remembering how fortunate you are”
After the show Max and his band begun their venture into somewhat foreign territory. Currently the band is on the West Coast, still with the Waking Eyes by their side. Kerman is glad he is doing this tour with another Canadian band, even though they just met days before the tour kicked off.
“I think all Canadian musicians kind of have a similar sense of the underdog,” Kerman suggests. “Everyone's always working really hard, everyone takes it really seriously, and everyone wants to have a good time too. So, I think we all kind of have that bond together.”
He went on to compliment the Waking eyes, praising their song writing and describing them as “the kind of guys I'd want to hang out with anyway.”
Kerman described their success as a natural progression and seems to be a lot more excited to travel to countries than play four times a month in Hamilton.
But this article's purpose isn't to advocate that radio rocks (obviously it does) or to tempt you to go see a band that is on the other side of the country. What I'm saying is keep your eyes peeled and your ears open to opportunities, like a five dollar concert at a local pub, which might just happen to change your life in the tiniest way possible. But if I have happened to seduce you into the awesome sounds of Arkells, don't worry. Guess which band is opening for the Tragically Hip come July 23 in Harris Park?
