The Trews w/the Jeremy Hoyle Band
Artpark, Lewiston, NY
July 29/09

by Sharon Vernon

The Artpark in Lewiston, NY, is home to two different types of  performance venues as well as numerous hiking trails, nature sites, fishing docks, and picnic areas; it's an absolutely gorgeous spot to see a show of any kind or participate in anything else it has to offer, really.  Easy parking, free outdoor concerts in a dramatically beautiful environment, hills and forests and water and beer (albeit American) - what's there not to love?  Especially when the boys from Antigonish, NS, are there to show our American neighbours how we rock north of the 49th.

Opening act Jeremy Hoyle and his band from Buffalo came on almost on time and performed to the as-yet small crowd that had braved the earlier weather to get good spots for the show.  The six-piece did mostly original folky-rock material that was bland and uninspiring, to the point where *they* seemed to feel it themselves; the musicians barely moved on stage and they seemed to play by rote rather than with any real enthusiasm - which was interesting considering they got a better reception from the crowd than I've seen many an opening act get.  It didn't seem to penetrate their lack of energy, though, and the set seemed to go on forever mostly because of that.

The Trews came out just a bit later than scheduled to a few thousand people who were clearly there to see them.  From the moment they swung into the first song, the usually-blistering "Burning Wheels" until they departed for good some two hours later, that crowd sang at the tops of their lungs to practically everything; from where we stood there were times when the audience was louder than the band.  And these guys love that; they love taking an already cranked up crowd and turn them on their ear.  They certainly seemed to do that this night, with the audience getting nuttier and nuttier as the band rocked harder and harder as the evening went on.

And let's be clear: the band was definitely there to make their existence known this evening. They crooned and screeched and harmonized like birds, and they pounded on things and made guitars wail, and they jumped and ran and twirled and did whatever was necessary to MAKE YOU PAY ATTENTION.

These guys are really good at that MAKING YOU PAY ATTENTION thing: they know how to grab you and keep you until they're ready to let you go - but not until.  They blasted their way through Canadian hit after hit - "Not Ready To Go", "So She's Leaving", "Tired of Waiting", "Hold Me In Your Arms", "Poor Old Broken Hearted Me", "Paranoid Freak", "Yearning", "Fleeting Trust", "I Can't Say" - as well as popular album tracks like "Ishmael & Maggie" and "Be Love".  Everything was played with passion, vigor, effort, and enthusiasm; and with every song people distracted by partying kept getting more distracted by the band, until everyone was on their feet and dancing their butts off by the end.

What these guys can do better than most other bands is work cover tunes into their set in interesting, exciting ways; indeed, some of their covers have become so well known amongst their fanbase that when they don't do them, people sometimes walk away disappointed.  It's the way they work them into their own songs that makes everything so effective; it's seamless and shows you where their influences really come from.  In Lewiston, "Fleeting Trust" and "Gimme Shelter" combined to make a powerful statement about what's going on in the world today, and everyone sang "It's just a shot away" and "It's just a kiss away" back at lead singer Colin MacDonald with a fervor.  Humble Pie's "30 Days In The Hole" in the already-raucous "Not Ready To Go" had people pumping their fists in the air and dancing their faces off.

But the most impressive medley they do has to be around the hit "Tired Of Waiting".  In Lewiston, they did my New Favouritest Thing in Live Music: Big Sugar's cover version of Al Green's "I'm A Ram" into "Tired" into Otis Redding's "These Arms Of Mine" crash landing on "Tired" to bring the entire thing to a close.  It was MONSTROUS and MAGNIFICENT, because of Colin and that Voice.  Ah yes, The Voice.  Prodigious in the EXTREME, this young man can sing like most of today's young singers only *WISH* they could; indeed, he has the power, the control and the range of singers 20 years his senior, and it was in this particular medley that all of that shone so very brightly.  Funky and bright one minute, anthemic and leading the sing along the next, then pleading with all his soul right after that, it was hard not to stare in amazement as he went from one to the other with seemingly no effort whatsoever.

However, this band is truly the sum of it's exceptional parts; each member is remarkably talented at what they do, and to remove any of them would take away a great deal of what makes them stand out so much from others who are trying to do the same thing.  Guitarist John Angus MacDonald is expert at both rhythm and lead, but his star truly shone when he was out front peeling off lead solos that made every aspiring guitarist stare in awe; his gleeful stage antics paid homage to his heroes rather than mock them, and whether he put the guitar behind his head or jumped off the kick drum to end a song, the audience reaction was visceral and genuine.  Mark my words: this man will be a huge Rock Star; he's already well on his way.

The rhythm section of bassist Jack Syperek and drummer Sean Dalton were an absolute force to be reckoned with, sounding large and in your face the entire evening.  They moved together so precisely and so accurately that I think it was easy to forget they were up there doing their part; neither was overly flashy onstage but without the stunningly huge bottom end they supplied the night surely would not have gone off as well as it did. Indeed, Dalton's solo - begun on the djembe during the acoustic performance of the pretty new song, "Sing Your Heart Out" and finished behind his kit - was the most dramatic he got all evening, with gestures to the audience to get them to shout in rhythm or clap along and ending with his sticks being tossed out into the crowd, but not once did he lose the rhythm he had set. His meter was jaw-dropping. Syperek stepped forward to start "Tired Of Waiting" as the song begins with the bass, but that was it - he stepped back and continued on his own way through the rest of the song. In fact, he went on his own way for the entire show, seeming lost in his own world sometimes, but make no mistake: this man is a staggeringly amazing bass player; his fingers are a blur for much of the time as he carves out a groove with Dalton easily a mile wide.

The band has had a keyboard player with them on the road now for well over a year, and Jeff Heisholt filled the roll with as much passion and heart as the original members in Lewiston.  He sang, and played guitar and percussion instruments throughout the night as well as keys; he was well received and seems to have become the fifth member easily and solidly. Colin and John Angus hovered around his keyboards through solos, making sure people noticed that he was there, and it seemed very natural and organic.

The only thing that took this from being a truly jaw-dropping concert was the sound (because the performance was ridiculously superb); at least where I was, it was fairly consistently awful the entire evening.  When the Trews first took the stage, it was in fact completely non-existent and nothing really got turned up so you could actually HEAR it until about four songs into the set; at one point even further into the show Colin shouted to the sound man that the guys in the front row were in fact chanting for the sound to be turned up (a chant the folks in our area picked up as well). But even after the overall sound was turned up, John Angus's guitar - including the solos - was just not in the speakers on our side of the stage; I had to turn my head to where he was and really work to pick out what he was playing whenever he did a solo, and with the kind sound these lads like, that's simply not acceptable.  Perhaps someone has told them that with their slightly retro rock n' roll approach, their live shows should be "stereo", ie. split the instruments between the two sides of the stage, like the good old days.  Yeah, NO.  With a guitar player as good as John Angus, you want him everywhere in the sound, because what he does is so integral to their music.  So here's hoping that that gets fixed in the future.

Go see this band if you get the chance; they work hard, they play exceptionally well, they throw an amazing party, and they're worth the trip to see, no matter where it is.  You won't regret it.  I promise.