The Trews ready to play on the Supernova Celebration stage
Ask any musician growing up in Nova Scotia and playing in a rock band what the top items on their wish list are, and one of them is going to be taking the stage of the province’s biggest indoor venue, Scotiabank Centre.
The downtown Halifax arena was still called the Metro Centre on the three occasions that Antigonish-bred rockers the Trews were fortunate enough to be asked to perform there, and that magic number climbs to four when the Ontario-based band heads home to take part in Saturday’s Supernova Celebration. The Classified-led event co-produced by Brookes Diamond Productions is designed to get Nova Scotians back to live concertgoing with an allstar lineup of East Coast artists eager to show how they’ve developed their craft over the past 20 months.
The Trews guitarist Johnangus Macdonald expects there will be a few flashbacks as he strolls the backstage corridors beneath the seats, including a night exactly 15 years ago on Nov. 20, 2006 when he and his brother Colin and longtime friend Jack Syperek and former drummer Sean Dalton faced a sold-out crowd while opening for Guns N’ Roses.
“We were on the last song of our set, we only had two records out at the time, so all the hits were used up, and when you’re in an arena, you want to play familiar material, trust me,” he says with a laugh.
“There’s a tip for new bands, you don’t want to be doing your obscure (stuff) in front of 10,000 people.
“So we were like, ‘Thank you Halifax, good night, up next is Guns N’ Roses!’ And one of the tour managers comes up and does the hand signal saying we’ve gotta stretch. They wanted us to play longer.”
It turns out Axl Rose’s affinity for not coming on stage until he feels good and ready was in effect in Halifax that night, and the unpredictable GN’R frontman wasn’t even in the venue yet in advance of the band’s Chinese Democracy tour stop set.
“We just said, ‘What?’ and they told us we had to do 15 more minutes. So the Metro Centre is sold out, we’ve just played all of our flagship songs, what the hell do we do next?
“‘So here’s track 13 from our new record ... we did whatever we had to do, but it was the funniest, weirdest thing. Here we are at the most regimented, on-the-clock kind of venue, and we’re basically being asked to jam for another 15 minutes.”
Macdonald also recalls that night as the first time Rose got to meet the cast of his favourite TV show Trailer Park Boys, whose stars Robb Wells (Ricky) and John Paul Tremblay (Julian) will also be making an appearance on Saturday, on
the Supernova Celebration bill that also includes Matt Andersen, Ria Mae, JRDN, Reeny Smith, Breagh Isabel, Eastern Eagle and Roland Grant.
Originally slated to take place in October, before the start of Phase 5 of easing health and safety restrictions was delayed, the show’s move to this Saturday proved to be good timing for the Trews, as it now comes the day after the band releases its seventh album Wanderer. The new 13-track release began during sessions in Nashville produced by the Black Crowes’ Rich Robinson, with three songs completed just before COVID-19 closed the borders in March, 2020. The band made up for the setback with an intense period of writing — because what else are you going to do when there are no shows — and grabbing studio time in Toronto whenever possible with producers Derek Hoffman and Erik Ratz.
“It’ll be the first thing we do for the new album, and it’ll be at ... well, I still call it the Metro Centre,” sighs Macdonald. “But it’ll be at Scotiabank Centre, and it’ll be great to be home and it’s a great bill. It’s such an East Coast strong, East Coast proud bill, kind of heralding the return of live music to a city we love.
“Big ups to Luke for organizing this thing, this is really his baby, and he’s been in contact with me for months about pulling this together. I’m glad it’s finally here and tickets have been selling so well, I’m really looking forward to it.”
With so many acts taking to Scotiabank Centre’s stage between 7 and 10 p.m., the Supernova Celebration schedule won’t be looseygoosey like that GN’R show, but besides the familiar hits like Not Ready to Go and Hope & Ruin, Trews fans can expect to hear some new songs from the brand-new Wanderer, like the lead-off single I Wanna Play.
The tune couldn’t be more perfect for the event, as it was inspired by the frustration at seeing concert opportunities fall by the wayside due to COVID-19 cancellations, and it just turned out to be one of those happy accidents that came together while the band was working on new material in Macdonald’s loft studio.
“It’s kind of a rock ‘n’ roll cliche, that it was initially written as a joke,” he recalls. “I think we were just really bummed that another gig got cancelled, which happened to be the CP Holiday Train, which is an incredible amount of fun where you just roll down the tracks and play five or six mini shows a day. The side of a railcar door opens and you just play for thousands of people and the mayor of the town gets a big cheque for the local food bank.
“That was our last hope for 2020, that we would be able to play this thing, and we got the call that they were going virtual and couldn’t do it inperson. So Colin immediately wrote this line, ‘I wanna get on a train in a global pandemic.’ We thought it was funny, but within 15 minutes it was done; we gave it an anthemic chorus and by the time we demoed it, we felt it was a good song, and it meant a lot more than a joke.”
If you’re tired of waiting for major concerts to return, Supernova Celebration is your chance to attend the city’s biggest concert event in two years, with tickets available at the Ticket Atlantic box office at Scotiabank Centre, or online at www.ticketatlantic.com.