When you think of the Napier Theatre, you typically think of blockbuster movies. This weekend, it was the venue for some great Canadian rock music.
The Napier Theatre, along with Valley Brewing and Drum Distilling brought in a Tragically Hip tribute band, Ahead By A Century, on Saturday night. The auditorium was packed with fans of the iconic Canadian band and these guys did justice to the Tragically Hip. Pete Howard, the lead singer of the band, shares that Drumheller was always a place the band wanted to play. “We’ve got some guys in the band that I believe had been here before or knows somebody who had been here before, and they had told us that it was a great thing. Our band is geared to do theatres and large casino rooms, so when we heard it was a theatre and said let’s go, let’s have some fun. We were all looking forward to coming.”
The choice to become a tribute band of the Tragically Hip developed over years for Howard. “I was on the road for a living at the same time when The Hip was on the road, selling their first albums. We were all playing the same market. It was great to see them in their meteoric rise. It wasn’t until later on that I started to really look at they lyrics. I was so impressed by Gord’s writing about Canadian issues, Canadian things. I started going to Tragically Hip concerts, of which I’ve been to about six before they finished up, and it always blew me away the level of emotion they would get from their audience. The singing along that went along with that. It was the only time that I had ever seen that level of emotional outpouring for a band in Canada. Everybody knew the words, everybody sang along. It was really inspiring.”
Seeing this show, it was amazing on how the band, especially Howard, picked up on the mannerisms of Gord Downie and he admits that it did take some work to achieve this. “I studied a lot of what he did on stage, how he did it. My daughter is an opera singer and she has always said ‘Dad you were always really good at imitating other singers’, and is, I guess, my thing. It is getting a little harder as you get older and this stuff was really a good fit for me, vocally, the story telling, and then being able to learn all the moves, and look as much like him as I can, is a lot of work but well worth it in the end.”
Many that attend their shows, have a strong connection to the music of the Tragically Hip and Howard shares a couple of instances where some of the fans share their connection. “Some of the stories are ‘I’ve talked to Gord’, I’ve met Gord’s cousin, I have met the lady that made Gord’s hats on tour. The people that haven’t met the band, but associate those songs with something that happened in their life. It’s crazy how that fits into people’s lives here in Canada.”
Howard and the band truly appreciate the Tragically Hip and want to honour the band the right way. “We trying to do it right. I’ve been in a lot of bands that sort of play Tragically Hip songs, these guys broke it all down to ‘brass tacks’, and built it up from there. We think we’ve got all their odd ball tunings down, which is why we have so many guitars on stage. We’ve tried really hard to make it authentic and feel we’ve done pretty good so far.”
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