BROS kick off winter music festival with their first ever road show
Hillside Inside celebrated its 10th anniversary this February, kicking off the weekend-long festival with a psychedelic performance by BROS at Peter Clark Hall on Feb. 9.
BROS is the new musical venture for Ewan and Shamus Currie of famed Canadian band The Sheepdogs. While their main gig is all about rock and roll, BROS is steeped in ’70s funk and power-pop.
The live band consists of nine members, with bass, keys, drums, bongos, and a three-piece trombone section backing Ewan and Shamus. Despite the busy stage, their debut album BROS Vol. 1 was recorded almost entirely by the brothers from Saskatoon.
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“Aside from drums, we did everything except for a little percussion by our friend Adam who’s playing in the band,” Ewan said in an interview with The Ontarion before Hillside Inside’s opening show.
“There’s tons of layered vocals, that’s all us,” Shamus added.
In The Sheepdogs, Shamus takes on keyboard and trombone duties, but in BROS, he’s writing, composing, and singing lead, a role he’s excited to take on. He says the best part was really getting to tailor the music to their liking: “It’s nice to make a really idiosyncratic project where we can make music that appeals to our very particular tastes.”
When asked about the differences between a Sheepdogs show and a BROS show, Ewan smiled and said, “We’re still trying to figure that out, we’ve only really done one actual show so far.”
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Both brothers remark that they’re having a lot of fun exploring different roles in BROS. With more members contributing sound, there’s less reliance on one instrument. The tunes are carried by harmonies rather than a single guitar riff.
The band’s first album was released through the same label as The Sheepdogs, Dine Alone Records, but Ewan and Shamus say it was a completely independent project.
“We just did it—we didn’t talk to anybody before we started recording. I fronted the money up and we just kind of worked away on it,” Ewan explained.
Both brothers say that they were definitely helped by CBC’s popular radio show Q—currently hosted by Tom Power—when they picked up BROS’ lead single “Tell Me” as their theme song.
“It’s been a pleasant surprise. We just were making music because we enjoyed it and we knew we wanted to put it out whether people heard it or not… we weren’t even really expecting to do a tour or shows.”
Out of the 10 tunes on the album, Ewan and Shamus agreed that “Flight 714” is their favourite to jam on with the band. It’s a Latin-infused instrumental with a soca beat.
“It’s just infectious. As soon as you hear it, you can’t help but want to move. It’s fun to see this big band of dudes making this sound,” Ewan added.
The aforementioned band took to the stage around 10:30 p.m. to raucous cheers from the crowd packed into Peter Clark Hall. The backing band wore slick, all black outfits, while the Currie brothers looked as ’70s as ever in patterned shirts and bolo ties.
After being introduced by bassist Thomas D’Arcy, the band launched into the rocking tune “Sometimes You Got to Be Sad,” with the layers of instrumentation and vocal harmonies handled expertly by the group. Any doubts that BROS might not be able to replicate the delicate harmonies and complexities achieved in the studio were erased immediately, much to the delight of the Hillside Inside crowd.
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Amidst the cheers, Ewan told the crowd that live music was supposed to be “an escape to something better than the real world” and for those in attendance Thursday night, it was impossible not to get swept up in BROS’ infectious funk swagger.
Shamus counted in the next track, “Brazil,” the first song he had written for the BROS record. His lead vocals shone on the tune, with an impressive falsetto emerging from the moustachioed Currie brother.
During the show, Ewan described “Couldn’t Hear A Thing” as his favourite song that Shamus has ever written, and the vocal work shared by the Currie brothers and D’Arcy was one of the most impressive musical feats of the evening, with interweaving falsettos and strong harmonies soaring over the toe-tapping groove.
While introducing the slow-burning tune “Watch Who You’re Talking To,” Ewan suggested it might be the best track on the record to get down to, but urged the audience to keep their grinding “appropriate.” The simplicity of the tune made it the perfect candidate for an extended jam, with Ewan head-banging through his longest solo of the night.
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The crowd joined in on the intoxicating groove of “Boogar Sugre” with a fervent singalong of the tune’s melody, but even that was overshadowed by the glorious horn riffing throughout the song. Shamus left his keyboard and joined the trombone section for a wild four-trombone solo, leading to perhaps the most mind-blowing bonanza of brass Hillside has ever seen.
The band’s main set closed out with a spirited rendition of “Tell Me” which featured another impressive sing-along from the crowd. It’s certainly the song the band is most known for, and their performance did not disappoint.
The Hillside Inside crowd pleaded for an encore as the Currie brothers left the stage, but as D’Arcy noted, BROS only has 10 songs, and they played all 10 of them. BROS didn’t leave the crowd hanging for long, as they returned to the stage to pull off an explosive cover of the Hall & Oates classic “Rich Girl” to a joyous ovation. The tune truly played to the band’s strengths instrumentally and Ewan’s vocals were fittingly impassioned.
Looking ahead to the end of 2017, Ewan disclosed that the new Sheepdogs record should be released sometime before 2018 and that their musical priorities will have flip-flopped.
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“Right now we’re doing shows with BROS and the Sheepdogs record is being worked on, and I think by the end of the year, the Sheepdogs record will be out and we’ll be doing some shows, and we’ll be working on BROS Vol. 2 behind the scenes.”
“And I’ll be sleeping on a pile of money surrounded by beautiful women,” Shamus added, with a casual coolness that seemed to encapsulate BROS’ vibe. A couple of cool dudes making groovy tunes and having a damn good time doing it. This is BROS.
Photo by Dana Bellamy/The Ontarion.
Check out this article for more highlights from Hillside Inside.