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2009
After taking the month of January off, the band started off February on the road, heading north up through Southern Ontario to the private ski club of Georgian Peaks, on the shores of Georgian Bay. Dave Battah's "Tonight's the Night" show was booked to play at the annual "Ladies Day" celebrations. It was a show that most of us won't be forgetting for a while.
We headed out early morning as it was a 3-hour drive through the snow belt of Ontario in February. Fortunately it was clear and sunny all the way and we arrived mid-afternoon at 'the Peaks'. In addition to our regular band and Dave Battah as Rod Stewart, we had Ewan Fernie from the Abbamania show filling in for us that day on piano, as Tony couldn't make the trip. And as we have known him to do before, he did an excellent job.
Ewan Fernie as
Benny Andersson of
Abbamania
Dave Battah as
Rod Stewart
As 40+ year professional musicians, there's not a whole lot that will 'phase' us when it comes to performing shows. But being the only 10 males in a room of 700 women, all ready to party and enjoy themselves is rather unnerving.
As usual, Dave had the place rockin'. At times he would head out into the crowd with his cordless mic and we would wonder if he'd get back to the stage safely. Once Dave had finished his one-hour Rod Stewart show, there was a rather long break before the band came
back on and did an hour-long Powerhouse show. During the break, there was a 'fashion show', with models walking by runway-style, wearing the latest in summer beachware fashions. Of course you can imagine the difficulty that the ten musicians had as they were forced to sit quietly as bikini-clad models paraded in front of them. I would have supplied pictures for this part of the show, but somehow, sitting in the wings, snapping pictures of young ladies in bikinis just didn't seem like the thing to do. All in all though, a memorable show at Georgian Peaks in February.
Throughout the early part of 2009, the band stayed local, playing familiar clubs to keep the sound 'tight' and work in a bit of new material. They did a two-night date at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto with Frank Rondelle and his Ray Charles tribute show, took their Chicago Transit show to AppleJack's Grillin' & Chillin' and in April, they were at beautiful L.I.U.N.A. station for the closing night of the four-day Hamilton Film & Arts Eco Festival. The above write-up is from that event.
"The new CNR station [in Hamilton] was deigned in the Neo-classical style, and construction began in 1929. The cornerstone was laid on May 7, 1930 and the first passenger train left on February 20, 1930. The official opening was held a year later on May 27, 1931"
The grand ballroom in the old CNR station is a truly magnificent room to put on a show and following a film on Rachel Carson's book: "Silent Spring", Powerhouse took the stage and did two shows to close out the night and the festival.
A week later, the weather was starting to turn for the better and Powerhouse was on the road again -- this time, across the border, up to Brimley, Michigan and the Bay Mills Casino on the Michigan upper peninsula. The band had taken their Chicago Transit show there two years previously in the middle of the winter, racing home in the middle of the night to avoid an impending blizzard. This trip promised to be much more pleasant -- at least as far as travel was concerned.
The band for this U.S. Chicago Transit show had Glen Higgins on saxophone, who'd played many times before with the band, and Suzanne O on piano and vocals -- she did all the Peter Cetera songs for us. Suzanne, pictured in the above two pictures with the pink top, is a regular in the local band, "Up Front". Although never playing with us before, and with only a few weeks warning, Suzanne came in and 'nailed it'. This very talented woman had certainly done her homework and was a pleasure to work and travel with.
It was a long drive up to Brimley, Michigan from Hamilton -- 8 hours or so -- so the plan was to drive up Friday, stay overnight, play Saturday, stay over that night and come home on Sunday. We rented a couple of Kia vans and off we went.
"Rising 552 feet (that's 55 stories!) above the Straits of Mackinac, where lakes Michigan and Huron meet, is the world-famous Mackinac Bridge. Also known as the "Mighty Mac," this engineering marvel is 5 miles long and, anchor block to anchor block, holds the record as the longest suspension bridge in the world!"
As always, with these pages, press the left button on the mp3 player above if you wish to turn OFF the music. And it's always best to wait a bit while the page loads. Chances are, there's a lot of pictures here.
When we came through here a couple of years ago, it was the middle of the night each time we travelled over this bridge. This time, we made sure to leave Hamilton early enough that we'd get here before the sun went down. And we made it by about an hour. It didn't really feel like we were 55 stories high as we drove over the middle span of the bridge, but it sure felt like it was 5 miles long, though. Pictures were difficult to capture from up so high in the overcast early evening. But we'd be coming back again in a couple of days during the daylight. All that remained of today was the two-hour drive to Brimley and unwind in the hotel rooms.
The next day was a late afternoon soundcheck before our evening shows, so a few of us took some time to stroll around the casino property. The place was huge, also housing three restaurants and a 200-room, 3-floor hotel where we stayed. It was still quite chilly and windy outside along the southern shore of Lake Superior -- one of the hotel staff told us that last summer, there were only 2 or 3 days when it got up into the 80F temperature range. There was certainly no one but us walking around the grounds that day.
Since it was just the eight of us, with no one else manning a camera, pictures of the show are limited to a shot of the stage during set-up for soundcheck. The venue was a mid-sized banquet room and we did two shows, at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Next morning -- well, noon actually -- it was time to pack up and head back home.
Above and below: Not a lot of green in the land this early in the year so far north, but still great country along the southern shore of Lake Superior.
There also weren't a lot of ships in the strait below the Mackinac Bridge this early in the year, but the view was spectacular, just the same.
The rest of the day was spent finishing the eight-hour drive down through central Michigan, across the Blue Water Bridge at Sarnia/Port Huron, then across to 400 highways to Hamilton. It was another excellent band road trip.
After getting back from northern Michigan, the band was off to the club at Sherkston Shores for an 'official' start to the summer season. Our friend Sue came along for the evening and took her usual excellent shots of the band that night. No Sue, we can't put that piece of driftwood on the roof of the car.
The next night, the band was at the Arnold Centre, Mohawk College on Hamilton mountain for a benefit in support of woundedwarriors.ca
"The fund is designed to deliver quality of life, financial, benevolent and moral assistance through five different streams of support.
The outpouring of support from Canadians has been overwhelming. Be it corporations, celebrities or everyday citizens, WoundedWarriors.ca is a success story borne out of a horrible tragedy that continues to support those in need."
Excerpted from: woundedwarriors.ca
It is probably best to go to the top of this page and shut off the mp3 player if it's still going before starting this video. If not, both will run simultaneously.
RCL Branch 163 Pipe & Drum Band
Above: The Burnt Rose Band (from left to right) -- Don Berryman (keyboards), Greg Cannon (drums), Phil Kott (bass guitar), Robyn Echlin & Kim Lister (vocals), John Ricci (acoustic guitar), Debi Ferguson & John McCullough (guitar and vocals)
... and for those who noticed, on the far left of the pictures, Don on keyboards also plays trombone with Powerhouse, and Phil on bass guitar is the Powerhouse lead guitarist.
Once the other three Powerhouse horn players took the stage for the final two numbers of Van Morrison's "Wild Night", and a Burnt Rose original song, "Easy Street", the stage became very crowded. The band went over well, though, and after a short break to change the stage set-up, Powerhouse took the stage for their show.
Of course, the best part about the whole evening was that, not only was the Arnold Centre packed that night, but the show raised over two thousand dollars for the woundedwarriors.ca cause. If you're not familiar with this group, please do visit their website.
