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BTO, APRIL WINE, HEADPINS In Ottawa, Canada By Andrew Depedro, Ottawa Corespondent Wednesday, May 14, 2025 @ 12:44 AM
This would not be the first time I've been able to perform double duty in honoring both my KNAC.COM and TD Place obligations on the eve of the Back In Overdrive Tour featuring three of Canada's top classic rock vets either celebrating their 45th, 50th or 55th anniversary as a band. Only know of one song from each if even at all? Guess I can set aside folding these gargantuan hockey jerseys with Randy Bachman's autograph on them to take you back to school for a few minutes.
Sultry vocals! Solid stage presence! Guess that would explain why openers the HEADPINS were selected as the opening band for WHITESNAKE's Slide It In European tour in '84 at the height of their career following the release of their second album Line Of Fire. Formed in the late 70's as an initial side project by then-CHILLIWACK members Ab Bryant (who occasionally tours with LOVERBOY) and the late Brian "Too Loud" MacLeod, the band have amassed a pretty decent following considering their frequent lineup changes and a grand total of three studio albums - with their last album Head Over Heels having been released 40 years ago. Perhaps not the ideal band to reference when debating with any RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE fans over who has the larger studio album input, but otherwise, the HEADPINS can still boast a decent game. And while the raspy powerful vocals of longtime vocalist Darby Mills were not present in person at the night's show, her successor Kat Lawrence slipped into her own high heels and delivered a stellar performance. In fact, a few seconds into the opening number "Don't Matter What You Say", she almost seemed to be the only member whom you could hear due to a slight technical issue. By the time that the opening power chords to "Feel It (Feel My Body)" were riffed out by Tony Dellacroce, the band - currently comprised by Lawrence, Dellacroce, keyboardist/guitarist Alfie Galpin and longtime members Ab Bryant (bass) and Bernie Aubin (drums) - were unstoppable throughout their performance. The hits would continue as the HEADPINS bowled out a well-rounded show with "Just One More Time" (the band's best-known global hit), "Don't It Make Ya Feel" and the anthemic closing number "Turn It Loud". All in all, an enthusiastic performance from a band whose premature split early in their career was worthy of more returns.
https://www.headpins.net/
Harder! Faster! And pretty sure by now with over half of their current lineup actually being from the Ottawa area with the exception of Brian Greenway, co-headliners APRIL WINE may as well be Ottawa's band in the same way that we have always claimed ownership of EXCITER and ALANIS MORRISSETTE. Granted, AW's own original lineup formed in Halifax in 1969 before they based themselves in Montreal a year later, mistaking Polydor Records' rejection letter of their demo as an actual invitation to rehearse for the label. Sixteen studio albums later and having toured the world over with several bands ranging from the ROLLING STONES (specifically Keith Richards' infamous 1977 plea-bargained El Mocambo concert which kept him out of prison for drug trafficking) to IKE & TINA TURNER to SQUEEZE (!) to NEIL YOUNG to DIAMOND HEAD among others throughout their 56 year-long career, the latest version of APRIL WINE have returned to the Lansdowne stage after nearly four years. Opening with the excitable clanging cowbell sounds of "Oowatanite", the band, comprised of Greenway, Richard Lanthier (bass), Roy Nichol (drums) and their most recent addition of Marc Parent (guitar, ex-EIGHT SECONDS), rile up the crowd, with Greenway and Parent sharing much of the vocals and guitar duties. Despite a few of their biggest hits being otherwise mostly obscure covers, APRIL WINE have always been known as a band that can put their own indelible signature on their music. The swaying funk of HOT CHOCOLATE's "You Could Have Been A Lady" still works live with Greenway and Parent's double axe attack, the solo from the mystical-sounding "Sign Of The Gypsy Queen" - originally written by LORENCE HUD and notably famous for its appearance in Breaking Bad's "Granite State" episode where Jesse Pinkman's recorded confession is being replayed back at Todd and Uncle Jack's compound - morphs awesomely into a sleek-sounding improvised blues jam that knows not to overstay its welcome, and their cover of ELTON JOHN's rustic groovy hippie number "Bad Side Of The Moon" sounds as authentic in 2025 as it did upon its release in 1971. Meanwhile, their own individual numbers vary from casually modest pleasantries such as "Say Hello" to acknowledging the official bilingual blueprint of our linguistical cultural mosaic in the form of the catchy "Just Between You And Me" to acknowledging their musical roots in the form of the hybrid BEATLES/ROLLING STONES medley track "I Like To Rock" to the closing Sunset Strip precursor street ready swagger of "Roller". And with their biggest European tour in years coming up, APRIL WINE continue to be one of our best-known musical exports worth testifying over.
Setlist:
Opening with the classic cut "Take It Like A Man", the current incarnation of BTO featuring Bachman, bassist Fred Turner, keyboardist Mick Dalla-Vee, guitarist Brent Howard, drummer Marc LaFrance and Randy's son Tal on guitar, got the crowd primed and geared for the night's performance. And like many of BTO's performances, Randy has as many stories about the history of his songs as he has songs - he had his own radio program called Vinyl Tap on CBC Radio for 16 years where he'd play obscure album tracks before discussing the story behind them - which made for an even more interesting and interactive performance overall while working within the 90-minute window of stage time. If anything, Randy's main focus was really on the music and especially on being able to play more of the deeper cuts from BTO's catalogue - and he made good on that focus on heavy experimental tracks such as THE WHO-inspired "Not Fragile", the bottom end blues-sounding "Blue Collar" and the great uncle of doom metal titled "Four Wheel Drive", known for its rumbling bass intro and down tuned riffs.
Closing out the set starting with "Let It Ride", "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" and "Roll On Down The Highway", BTO may have sounded like they were ready to take their bow for the evening, but they certainly didn't feel like they did. And the audience definitely made them know it, prompting the pleasant chords of the intro to "Hey You" to be strummed. And from there, came the medley of other 70's/80's classic rock hits that had followed - FREE, STEVE MILLER BAND, T-REX, AC/DC, the STONES, BOB SEGER - before resuming the song, almost as if it was an homage to BTO's own competition no matter how often we've all heard those songs by now. And if we're being honest here, could you see Brian Johnson or Mick Jagger attempting anything of this magnitude with a BTO cover during their own bands' respected performances? And once "Takin' Care Of Business" officially brought the curtain down, some five generations of fans young and old exited the stadium, fully schooled on 60 years of Canadian music history summarized in 4 hours. In every way.
Setlist:
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And, most notably, the infamous KROKUS-covered "Stayed Awake All Night", which, while odd in its initial form without Marc Storace's raw-sounding Bon Scott-styled vocals, packed the same groove and swagger with Randy's powerful voice and improvised soloing. If anything, BTO's version is actually slightly faster than KROKUS' version. Naturally, that performance led to another KROKUS cover staple in the form of "American Woman" which had been cleverly left out from the previous five-song set of the GUESS WHO's other hits. Most of the diehard BTO fans would've made the connection between those two songs anyway without Randy needing to point them out. For my preference, I'd have been fine with the show ending right there and then, but with his eldest son Tal being in the current BTO lineup, it's only fair for Randy to give him his chance to shine as Tal follows up with his own 1999 hit "She's So High", which, coincidentally, was sharing the rock charts that same year with LENNY KRAVITZ' own cover of "American Woman".
As I said, the song connections were clear enough for the audience to do the math themselves.