MANITOBA'S MUSICAL MULLETS WERE HIGHLY ENTERTAINING FROM 'GO' TO WHOA!

Dave Wasyliw earned a standing ovation for his song Barbershop, which led to a whole bunch of hair jokes and funny moments during Friday night's Doc Walker show at the ACT in Maple Ridge. (Gord Kurenoff photo)


By Gord Kurenoff
Canwest Community Newspapers

They’re calling it the Speed of Life Tour, a cross-Canada fall expedition to promote their sixth album Go, and the feel-good, chart-topping tune Coming Home.
One can only assume, after witnessing Doc Walker’s compelling Friday night show in Maple Ridge, that the moniker Manitoba’s Musical Mullets was already taken!
While the award-hogging gang from Portage la Prairie received a standing ovation for their superb cover of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline – and earlier DW hits Rocket Girl, Get Up and Beautiful Life – country music’s 2009 Group of the Year left the 300-plus audience laughing hysterically as they flashed old yearbook pictures on the Arts Centre and Theatre stage.
“This will never get old on this tour,” quipped the now clean-cut frontman Chris Thornstein, whose own school photo looked like a cross between Jay Leno and early Achy Breaky Billy Ray Cyrus.
Ironically, two songs earlier Thornstein needed a few moments to clear his teary eyes after complaining that hairspray leaked into them. Show business, eh?
On a night when Doc Walker made Stop No. 2 on a fall tour that takes them to casinos, theatres, arenas and clubs across small-town Canada, the memorable moments were the unscripted, innocent ones.
The band laughed about doing a video shoot last week in Aldergrove, B.C. – for their new song If I Fall – where “it smelled like horse poop all stinking day.”
They laughed about their new dream-pursuing song Go, and the fact they all tried to keep girlfriends from leaving them in high school by suggesting their moms could get them "good jobs at Petland" after graduation.
And they laughed that the Maple Ridge crowd was the “best-clapping audience” they have seen in a long time.
“This one at least has some rhythm,” joked Murray Pulver, who was named Guitar Player of the Year at the Canadian Country Music Association awards show in Vancouver earlier this month.
Dave Wasyliw, who found time to get married in Mexico while on the group’s Beautiful Life Beach Party Tour in Mazatlan, received a standing ovation for performing Barbershop, a fun ditty that hasn’t found its way to CD yet, but managed to be among the major hits of Friday’s show.
Joined on this tour by bassist Brent Pearen and drummer Steve Broadhurst, Doc Walker did an amazing acoustic set, played all their hits and served up some powerful message songs – Driving With the Brakes On and North Dakota Boy. They easily demonstrated why they are the poster band of what’s right in the Canadian country music industry. And why Bon Jovi referred to them as Canada's top talents after opening for the New Jersey rockers.
Friday’s low turnout was perhaps the only blemish on an otherwise enjoyable evening. Maybe it was because Doc Walker just played a free, two-hour show in front of 10,000-plus fans at the Vancouver PNE, or that the 500-seat Arts Centre and Theatre isn’t conducive to a show people would rather move and dance to than just sit and watch.
Whatever. The band made sure those who came to see and hear went home happy. And that they did – no doubt likely feeling a lot better about their current hairdos, too.
FINAL LICKS – Vancouver’s Dustin Bentall (www.dustinbentall.com), who said he used to get his butt kicked playing hockey against Fraser Valley farm kids, opened Friday night with a great Bob Dylan-esque flavour, featuring tunes from his new album Six Shooter, which was recorded in Ashcroft, B.C. . . . The hotter-than-fire High Valley (www.highvalley.ca), who played with Paul Brandt at the Langley Events Centre last week, will join Doc Walker’s tour in Edmonton on Sept. 27 for their Alberta and Saskatchewan performances . . . Thanks to a great remake on the Phil Collins’ song That’s All, Doc Walker is currently in the Top 10 on Australian music charts. The song is on their Beautiful Life album, which won a Juno Award this year. Check out Doc Walker's website and future tour dates at www.docwalker.ca.

Gord Kurenoff is Managing Editor of the Abbotsford-Mission Times and a columnist for Canwest Community Newspapers in B.C. He can be reached directly by e-mailing gkurenoff@abbotsfordtimes.com.