The Trews Rock the Parking Lot with social distanced concert
“Highway’s crowded with dreams of gold
Everybody’s driving in the middle of the road”
Such are the lyrics from The Trews newest single, ‘God Speed Rebel’, which was released (complete with 5 part Zoom video) in the midst of the current Covid-19 pandemic ‘stay home’ crackdown. .. and apt lyrics to describe the first concert the band has been able to perform since before March of this year!
Organized by Live Nation (and Live Streamed on Youtube for all us geographically challenged music fans), The Trews played the big stage to a parking lot of cars; as singer Colin MacDonald jokingly put it, “nothing like playing rock n’ roll to a traffic jam.”
The Trews jumped on stage with hard hitting drum and guitar heavy, ‘Not Ready to Go’, highlighting Chris Gormley and John-Angus MacDonald (respectively), then flowing smoothly into ‘So She’s Leaving’ with a one-two punch of music to my ears! A few more songs in, ‘Vintage Love’ wth singer Colin MacDonald hitting the high notes… anyone who’s been watching Colin’s Friday night Instagram couch singing knows he laughingly has to ‘stand up’ to hit those notes (and that his upstairs neighbours are party to his vocal power).
‘Sing Your Heart Out’ presented a challenge – typically an audience massive singalong – the band got creative with ‘everybody honk now’ and the audience jumped in obliging enthusiastically!
Fat bass notes (Jack Syperek) and sparkling keyboards (Jeff Heisholt) intro ‘Paranoid Freak’ and smoothly transitions into ‘Hopeless’ mid-song, back to ‘Paranoid Freak’ and a rousing finale to the song from Heisholt pounding the keys as fast as his fingers can move; punctuated by fanatical happy ‘honking’ in leu of being able to clap and be heard.. its a strange sight to behold from my computer monitor but hey, this is 2020 remember?! Kudos to the fellows filming the show from on stage, up front and in the parking lot- being on stage with the band is incredible, being able to see people in cars smiling, singing and hanging out in truck beds and popped up through their skylights is what keeps this being a concert and less of a tv show.
The Trews usually do an acoustic mini set in their shows, and this show was no different. ‘In the Morning’, ‘Ishmael & Maggie’, ‘Man of Two Minds’.
‘Ish & Maggi’ provided some comic relief: “a king upon my bar stool throne, a vow to never drink along, I only drink with friends or total strangers… we look like a bunch of drunk bank robbers!” quips Colin MacDonald as the band stands shoulder to shoulder around 3 mics singing in masks.
Back to the electric show and the first live debut of ‘God Speed Rebel’ and it’s pretty damn good! ‘Highway of Heroes’, and a brand new song (?), and then suddenly guitarist John-Angus MacDonald is off the stage, taking his ripping guitar solo for ‘Poor Ol’ Broken Hearted Me’ to the people! MacDonald had emergency back surgery about 4 weeks ago which laid him up for a bit, and had him in physio learning to walk again without a cane.. to see him walking the length of the field and the reactions of the people he passed is glorious. While John-Angus is out walkabout, brother Colin is sharing drum duty with Chris Gormley -and OMG Colin must have taken lessons or something because holy Hannah he’s on fire! Bassist Jack Syperek is rounding it out playing bass with a drum stick, dancing to the beat. God I’ve missed live music!
My most favourite of all bass line, ‘Tired Of Waiting’, and Colin MacDonald gets the crowd into honking in-between Jack Syperek’s bass groove – didn’t take much arm twisting! Not every car is in tune/time but the mishmash of glorious participation is fun nonetheless.
As with all concerts, the band finished the set, said goodnight, and walked off the stage – and with all concerts the audience went crazy but instead of clapping and whistling, they honked.. and just like all concerts, the band came back for an encore!
The encore! The Trews end with Hold Me In Your Arms melding into a snippet of Sabotage and I swear! Colin MacDonald’s voice changes as soon as he rips it into the Beastie Boys! MacDonald’s vocal range has increased dramatically in the past few years, and gained a more melodic quality to it.
As for the rest of the band- the fun was apparent, the appreciation even more so.. every look on their faces as they played to a live audience, as they listened to the applause, whistles, car honks and flashing headlights tells the story of how much this band appreciates their fans and concert crowd. And again thank you Live Nation for streaming this one.. this was my first ‘live’ concert since The Glorious Sons March 8!
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photo of John-Angus thanks to Matthew Perry Photog
other photos via The Trews and Michelle Mooore Facebook and Instagram.
