Classic rock festival finishes strong Sunday

Hosts at Rock the Lake 2017 said they wanted to finish the classic rock music festival at Prospera Place on Sunday on a strong note. Chilliwack and Honeymoon Suite didn’t disappoint.

Carole Ann Pope, a British-born Canadian singer-songwriter, celebrated her 71st birthday on Aug. 6 but proved she still has the chops to reproduce the hits from her Rough Trade era in the 1980s.

However, she is best known as one of the first openly lesbian entertainers to achieve mainstream fame. She often performs in black leather pants and bondage attire then and now. Her explicit homoerotic and BDSMthemed lyrics can’t be repeated in a family newspaper.

One of her more popular numbers is her rerecording of the Rough Trade single High School Confidential for the Queer as Folk TV show soundtrack in season one. She also performed her Lesbians in the Forest from the gender-bending TV show Transparent.

Helix proved to still be the stereotypical Canadian hard rock/heavy metal band from the 1980s with lead vocalist Brian Vollmer looking older than his 62 years but still able to scream out the lyrics for Long Way to Heaven — decrying “too many songs about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.”

The irony of a song about his debauchery fit in perfectly with Wild in the Streets (lead single of the 1987 album with the same name), Danger Zone (from the 2013 album B-Sides) and No Rest for the Wicked (from the 1983 album of the same name). Yet he still yearns for Heavy Metal Love (from No Rest for the Wicked), Gimme Gimme Good Lovin’ (from the 1984 album Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge) and wants to Rock You (his best-known song from Walkin’ the Razor’s Edge, sales of 100,000 in Canada and 400,000 internationally).

Vollmer joked that the band has travelled around the world but on returning to B.C., “no one knows who we are.” So he wrote Even Jesus (Wasn’t Loved in His Hometown) from the 2014 album Bastard of the Blues.

He still prances frenetically around the stage, and his bandmates had all of the required heavy metal moves from head-tossing their long hair to the three guitarists repeatedly bending over in unison to the heavy beat. Then came the two class acts. Using the same sound system, virtually every word of Chilliwack’s best-known hits could be understood, underscored by lead singer Bill Henderson’s distinctive voice. There’s a lesson for the other bands, especially those still stuck on producing the traditional “wall of sound.” Crowds love to hear the words like they did so many decades ago.

Henderson led off with Lonesome Mary, his first U.S.-charting single (No. 75 in February 1972) and followed that up with the crowdpleasing Whatcha Gonna Do (When I’m Gone), California Girl, Arms of Mary, Crazy Talk, I Believe, Baby Blue, My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone) and an encore with Fly at Night, all so well known that the packed stage-front sang along song after song.

There was also a nod to Okanagan resident George Ryga, who died in Summerland in 1987. History lesson: Ryga made a significant contribution to popular music when he wrote the lyrics for a series of songs composed by members of the Vancouver-based band The Collectors for the soundtrack of his 1969 play Grass and Wild Strawberries.

Early Morning, the single release from the resulting Grass & Wild Strawberries album, became a local hit, and the show-stopping album track Seventeenth Summer was rerecorded by the band after it underwent a membership change and changed its name to Chilliwack in 1970. The distinctive track, strongly influenced by First Nations music, became a signature tune in live shows.

Not to be outdone, Honeymoon Suite, established in 1981, led off with Say You Don’t Know Me, elevating the classic rock music festival to a new high with the 1991 single from Monsters Under the Bed, which hit No. 37 in Canada.

Then it was time for another history lesson. You could check off the band’s singles one by one in almost perfect chronological order: Burning in Love and New Girl Now (both from 1984’s self-titled debut album), Stay in the Light and Wave Babies (both 1985), Feel It Again and What Does It Take (both 1986), and Love Changes Everything (1988).

There were outstanding instrumental solos by Peter Nunn on keyboards and guitarists Derry Grehan and Johnny Dee, but they didn’t take away from the string of singles that everyone came to hear (and sing along to a capella when the band paused).

The best news of all: tickets for Rock the Lake 2018 are already on sale through selectyourtickets.com. And, according to the show hosts, they’re “selling briskly.” Rock on, Kelowna.