While festival season might be over for the most part, Bronson Centre will be hosting a three day love-in for 80s Canadian artists fans won’t want to miss. The ‘Legends Weekend’ kicks off Friday night with a special set of four artists making special appearances in Ottawa—some for the first time in almost 30 years, while others will be right at home (literally).
Opening the Friday night festivities will be Ottawa’s own Andrés del Castillo from Eight Seconds. After winning a Chez 106 homegrown contest, the band had a massive hit with “Kiss You (When It’s Dangerous),” and parlayed that into a solid career through the 80s before going their separate ways. Friday might not match their 1987 show at Lansdowne opening for Duran Duran and David Bowie, but it’ll be great to hear those songs again.
Making what is becoming an annual event, The Box will be playing Ottawa in September for the third year in a row. No one is complaining though, as Jean-Marc Pisapia still sounds as great as ever with each show.
Meanwhile, Images In Vogue and headliners Strange Advance have not been to Ottawa since their heyday in the 80s, and will be giving fans a chance to finally enjoy their well-known songs live.
To mark the event, we caught up with Strange Advance’s Drew Arnott to chat about the decision to get back on the road, for a band that barely toured at the peak of their popularity.
Apt613: First off, welcome back! What inspired you to get a band back together?
Drew Arnott: Essentially, Daryl and I had always thought, at some point, we’ll get back to it. We started the process five or six years ago, but really the final nudge was when David Bowie passed away. We’re like looking at each other like “Oh God, you know, we’re next.” So that was the final thing that forced us out there.
I saw that Herbie Flowers, the bass player, passed away the other day, and he was on my bucket list of people I wanted to work with. He played bass on “Space Oddity” and “Walk on the Wild Side.” Great, great bass player, with great ideas. So it’s like “Hey, while the sun shines, we’re still here, we’re capable of doing it, we’re able to do it. Why not do it?”
The other thing is, I never felt that Strange Advance was putting on the type of show that I wanted us to. We just didn’t have the wherewithal, the time, even though we had a major label behind us. We didn’t tour the first album.
When we went out and we did our shows, they were fine. But now, we’ve got Ken Hill, our visual artist on board now, and he does screen projections and lasers and stuff. So there’s a visual component that’s designed to compliment the music. It’s the show that I wish we could have done back in the 80s.
Picking up on the technology part, when you did Strange Advance 4 in 2021, and thinking back to your originals, the level of technology must be like night and day.
Yeah, in the 80s, you needed a big studio, which we had plenty of. We did most of the recording in Vancouver in really top notch studios and great people. We actually were the first band to tie two 24 tracks together, so we had essentially a 48 channel mix, which is just insanity because it had to be mixed in two different rooms. Now we’ve got a digital console here that I could mix a whole record right here.
Back in the day, we only had 24 tracks for the most part, and the 24th track was given up to time code. So we only had 23 tracks to work with. Now, I can have 123 tracks, or 1,023 tracks. And the problem is, back then, you had to make decisions in the room, when you’re making a record. It’s like there is a track for the guitar solo. And because there’s more pressure to get it done right, because you don’t have hundreds of tracks to just lay down another track. Eventually, it’ll be magic. It has to be done now, on this little track, in this particular time period. So the pressure, it just sort of squeezed all the creativity to the top. You gotta make this work. You’ve got eight bars to make this happen. It’s a different vibe altogether than now.
How tricky is it now, having that wide of a range of options and the ability to keep tinkering?
My attitude was always that ‘it isn’t a finished record until it’s shrink wrapped.’ If it’s not shrink wrapped then I can still tweak. It’s like that old story about Beethoven, who used to give his finished manuscripts to his housekeeper and tell her to hide them. Because he knew he would just want to keep working on it. So yeah, I think limitations can be a boon, definitely.
Given it took 33 years to get Strange Advance 4, I’m assuming we won’t be waiting another 33 for Strange Advance 5. Is there anything in the works?
We do have a track record to live up to, so it might have to be released posthumously! I will get back to work on tunes and stuff soon. I have an unfortunate problem: I’ve got too many ideas. I remember reading about guys that were successful in business and they just took one idea and ran with it. Well, my problem is I have a gazillion ideas, so I have to decide which one to run with.
Legends Weekend at the Bronson Centre takes place Friday to Sunday.
Night #1: Friday, Sept. 27
Strange Advance with special guests The Box and Images In Vogue (this show also includes Andres Del Castillo from Eight Seconds)
TICKETS
Night #2: Saturday, Sept. 28
Kim Mitchell Band
TICKETS
Night #3: Sunday, Sept. 29
Daniel Lanois
TICKETS
