A Night at the T-Bar Glam! Opera
Just another typical mid-February Friday night at Panorama’s T-Bar and Grill was likely what was on most of the patron’s minds that night. But then, cutting through the sounds of the Beer Guzzling, Nacho Eating, Oil-Patch War-Story Telling, Mostly Male (average age 40–60) and Mostly Albertan Après-ski Crowd, Magnetic Heart’s lead singer and bass player Roman (from Russia with love) Volikov’s amplified Declarative Modus Operandi to the audience was heard:
When all your hopes and dreams are vanished,
When all you ever built is torn apart
And when the temple of your life has got you banished
You’ll feel the pulse of my MAGNETIC HEART
…And they were off….
It was hard to say whether or not Magnetic Heart, a Calgary based three piece rock band of drums, guitar and bass would resonate with this particular audience. They described their brand of music as a simple mix of hard rock, new wave, LA Sunset Strip hair metal, prog rock, old-school heavy metal, glam-rock, and post-punk. With a crowd likely expecting the familiar repertoire of a typical Family Ski Resort Cover Band, any confidence in a predicted outcome was in short supply.
Being the liaison between the band and the T-Bar’s management for the show’s booking, I was more concerned with giving the band a shot at performing in front of a crowd numbering close to 160. They were a relatively new band. However that is not to say that the musicians were new to their craft. Each had been in prior groups but came to form a band together with a unified vision to play mainly their own originally composed music derived from the previously mentioned sub-genres. Of the few shows they had already performed, each took place in Calgary venues that were ripe for new bands to play in and not exactly the kinds of places where you would find a Beer Guzzling, Nacho Eating, Oil-Patch War-Story Telling, Mostly Male (average age 40–60) and Mostly Albertan Après-ski Crowd. This show would give the boys a chance to play to their largest audience, and without the doting support of their friend/fan base. Although a couple of reeealllllyy close friends did make the 3 hour 30 minute drive to the show; that was it! Un-chartered territory! Potentially hostile crowds! Drunken skiers! Promiscuous Female Aussie Staff!?!?
My hopeless sacrifice,
You played your trick so well,
One glimpse of paradise,
Then you sent me straight to hell.
(from Devil in Desguise)
…sang the ripped baggy denim with leopard gold spandex underneath clad Volikov with a bandanna, beaucoup eye liner and face paint. The lead guitarist, Marshall (from Canada with love) Heaney not quite dressed as wildly swooned with his riffs, finger picking, and intricate chord combinations throughout. Providing the rhythmic beat to the group was drummer Mark (from Egypt with love) Gendy, who I was later to learn, was getting married in the not too distant future! Congratulations!
At this point in the evening, around 11PM, it was clear that the crowd was more in favour of conversing amongst each other then rocking out to a band that could have been transported directly out of the 1980’s LA Sunset Strip. The pumped up sound of Magnetic Heart did not exactly help this proclivity but a few people were starting to pay closer attention and dig the band’s output (reminiscing back to a previous life?).
My hopeless sacrifice,
You played your trick so well,
One glimpse of paradise,
Then you sent me straight to hell.
With the advantage of being relatively sober, I could still manage to make out the song lyrics while listening to the band. This is no easy task when you consider an environment of anti-Glenn Frey singing, loud guitars, drums, bass, flashing lights, and people screaming at each other trying to get whatever they had to say heard. One of the perplexing aspects of music is that the sound and melody of a track can invoke feelings in the listener that would stand in stark contrast to the feelings felt if one were to simply read the lyrics.
Cold liar, aim higher
You are the devil in disguise
Love killer, death dealer
Sent from hell, you’re my demise
You’re getting closer just to laugh
My soul is now your prize,
You won it all,
You’re the Devil in Disguise
Of course, with virtually no one in the room aware of Magnetic Heart’s product, it would have been foolish for the lads to not throw a few crowd pleasing cover songs in the performance. As any enterprising band knows, there is a fine line between perfecting your own material at the possible expense of entertaining the crowd, and throwing the dog a bone. And so in this spirit, sprinkled intermittently throughout the evening was a diverse range of familiar melodies. Blink 182? Sure! Sex Pistols? Why not? Afroman’s ‘Because I Got High?’ This is BC right? Garth Brooks……Garth Brooks??
Mentioning Garth Brooks brings me to one of the more humorous moments of the show. Perhaps the man who requested the song had just arrived to the bar and was unfamiliar with what they had been playing for the last hour. Perhaps he just didn’t care and wanted to hear is Damn Country Music. In any event, a Beer guzzling Nacho Eating, Oil-Patch War-Story Telling, Albertan Male requested none other than Garth Brooks! Country music! A Stampede ritual! You got the feeling by looking at this fellow and hearing him speak that he was the kind of guy that would obliviously brag to his brother in front of his own Grandmother about getting laid last Saturday night. Or the kind of guy that would, after a round of golf, try and put a UFC fight on the clubhouse’s TV despite it being Sunday and the final round of the Masters.
In between a couple of hard rock — new wave — LA Sunset Strip — hair metal — prog rock — old-school heavy metal — glam-rock and post-punk songs, up walked this individual to the stage:
“Buddy,” asked the intoxicated sounding Albertan, “you got any Garth Brooks to play?”
Heaney, laughing: “Are you serious???”
“Wait what? “ Inquired Mr. Volikov, wondering if he heard the Albertan right.
“You guys got any Garth Brooks to play!?” The Albertan demanded, as he presented with a wry smile a crumpled twenty dollar bill to the band.
Roman in reply: “Uh actually ya buddy I can play a Brooks tune for ya!”
Heaney (and I) in honest disbelief: “You can?”
Surprisingly to me and likely everyone in the T-Bar, it turned out the genre un-biased Mr. Volikov actually had some Garth Brooks up his sleeve. Upon reflection however, what I knew about Roman and what the crowd didn’t, was that despite the wild outfits and stage persona's, each member of the band concurrently holds a hard working white-collar job in Corporate Oil and Gas Calgary. And when working in Corporate Oil and Gas Calgary, knowing the tune, let alone the words, to a few country songs goes without saying. Why Roman had mastered a Garth Brooks song in particular remained a mystery (perhaps a past attempt to impress a cowgirl débutante?)
From this casual exchange, Roman, backed by local musician Oso Simple on drums, sang a rousing version of the modern country classic:
Blame it all on my roots
I showed up in boots
Immediately, a crowd of people young and old, male and female, gathered in front of the band and starting singing loudly along and dancing. This was the most energy from the crowd all night and it felt like a party. While the other band-mates and I were watching from the side, we couldn’t help but laugh! As he looked to the crowd, Marshall Heaney summed up the scene as pragmatically, and objectively as possible:
“I guess we’ll be doing more country next time”
Cause I've got friends in low places…
And so on…
For the next hour or so, the boys finished off what amounted to a great first-time gig outside of Calgary. The crowd had indeed come around to their unique sound. With the musicians growing more confident in themselves with each passing song, the propensity for a crowd of folks to enjoy even the most basic straight-off-the-iPod DJ’s performance (provided their blood-alcohol content is high enough), was easily overcome. The night manager of the T-Bar seemed sincere enough in wondering if the band would like to come back and play in the future.
To cap it all off, Mr. Volikov, the only single member of the band, even managed to secure a few numbers off some newly minted, doughy-eyed female supporters. After all, as Mick Jagger once sang “…it’s only rock and roll” — I imagine each of the band members gladly finishing the verse with agreement — “…but I like it.”
