Arkells give Ava, class of 2020, grad gift to remember
Robbed of graduation ceremony, McMaster student gets special serenade on front lawn in full garb
We may have found a new piece of graduation music, one with a catchier beat, to replace the traditional slow march of “Pomp and Circumstance.”
“Years In The Making,” by Arkells. It was the song that Arkells frontman Max Kerman and guitarist Mike DeAngelis played as a surprise for Ava Harrison, who stood listening in full graduation regalia, dumbstruck with disbelief, on her front lawn.
(But if it was a surprise, why was she in gown and mortarboard? Ah, read on.)
By now millions have seen the performance, and Ava’s reaction, either as part of the April 26 airing on all Canadian networks of the “Stronger Together, Tout Ensemble” special, in support of pandemic front-line workers, or later on social media.
The clip of the front-yard serenade, which happened a week earlier, came close to the end of the gala show Sunday night, which featured such stars as Céline Dion, Michael Bublé, Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, Sarah McLachlan, Howie Mandel, Jann Arden and Rick Mercer.
Ava was watching, of course, with her family, who had helped set up the whole thing with Max and Mike.
“I really didn’t know if they’d show it at all,” says Ava, who graduated this spring from Health Sciences at McMaster University. But, lo and behold, it was saved for the final 10 minutes of the 94minute show.
Her brother, Ethan, said to Ava (she also has a sister, Maddy), “You were on longer than Sarah McLachlan!”
“I was getting tagged in posts and emails — people using ‘Years In The Making’ with their grad photos,” says Max Kerman. “That was the impetus for it.”
The song, on the group’s latest record, fits the theme — the completion of a course of studies being literally years in the making, years of “putting in the work.”
And, adds Max, “all these people not getting a graduation ceremony,” because of the pandemic, seemed a misfortune too meaningful not to be redressed, however symbolically. So he decided he would play the song for someone as a kind of congratulations by proxy to all graduates, the class of 2020, in the absence of a formal gathering. But who?
Max is friends with Paul Langlois from The Tragically Hip, whose daughter, Sophie, attends McMaster. He phoned her, asked if she knew of anyone who was especially deserving and who might get a special lift out of being sung to as a graduation acknowledgment.
“‘I know just the person,’ ” Max quotes Sophie as saying.
Ava is not only a student who has been accepted to Oxford University in England to do her Master’s in clinical embryology starting in September, if circumstances allow, but she volunteers at a shelter and with Good Shepherd, she tutors, collects protective eyewear for COVID-19 workers, and she was on the graduation gala dinner/dance committee as well as shortlisted to be valedictorian.
So the loss caused by the cancellation of graduation and the dinner/ dance cut quite deep for her.
Max contacted Ava’s parents,
Tessa and Paul, as well as her boyfriend, Haydn Walker, on the sly. They concocted a pretext for getting her outside in ceremonial garb — they wanted photographs to send to granddad in England.
“It was quite a ruse,” Ava says with a laugh, in hindsight, about the elaborate lengths to which they went to set her up.
“Well, I was totally confused and amazed. So it completely worked.”
In the clip that was shown on TV she is saying, “This is insane,” and “Oh my god!!”
“It was a group effort (her family, boyfriend and Arkells) they put in and it was so sweet and genuine,” says Ava.
She still wishes she’d had a graduation but “this was definitely more than I ever could have expected or hoped for.”
Did she know right away who these two troubadours on her lawn were when she came out to the sound of their singing?
Instantly, she says. Ava is a fan. Part of the segment that aired on Sunday was Ava smiling for a cellphone video her boyfriend took of her at an Arkells concert.
“It’s so easy to feel disconnected” these days, says Max. “Sometimes we need a reminder.”
“It’s so easy to feel disconnected. Sometimes we need a reminder.” MAX KERMAN