Guelph band covers Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon
On Jan. 31, Guelph’s Tear Away Tusa covered Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon at Silence. The band played two sets, one at 8:00 p.m. and one at 11:00 p.m. I had the opportunity to attend the second set, which was a blast and made for a great ending to a solid night of music.
The band brought with them some special guests, including Andrew Liorti, Áine Ganly, “Boom King” Boonstra, Kieran Kane, Julie Maxwell, and Rob Kirsch-Spring.
Tear Away Tusa’s lead vocalist, Erin Tusa, completely stole the show. Her performance of “The Great Gig in the Sky” was absolutely phenomenal. She used her talent to put her own spin on the vocals of that song, and by the end of the performance, I had decided that I would probably pay money to buy her version of Pink Floyd’s masterpiece.
Shane Rodak and Erin Tusa made for a noteworthy duo during the band’s cover of “Brain Damage.” Their vocals fused together flawlessly in a haunting melody, adding to the already familiar and eerie effects of the original song.
As the band transitioned into “Eclipse,” the crowd responded to the song’s famous build-up that climaxes the album with an in-unison clap. At this point, the walls of Silence seemed to capture a moment between a great band, a soulful crowd, and Pink Floyd – a moment that couldn’t be put into words. I left the venue thinking to myself that this is what Guelph’s music scene is all about.
When asked about their initial decision to cover The Dark Side of the Moon, Tear Away Tusa’s Sam Schwartzbein reflected on a drive the band took in the middle of a summer night:
“I remember driving back from a show east of Guelph late at night, [sometime] in August or September. A side of the album was playing on one of those late night satellite radio channels. As the album was playing, we were realizing that the album had striking similarities to our musical strong points as a band. The foundation of the music is a rhythmic pocket, there are great saxophone and guitar solos, and ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ is the kind of space where Tusa thrives as a vocalist. So, as we were driving at two in the morning or so, we had this realization that we wanted to do our take on the album.”
Sam also spoke of Tear Away Tusa’s strong fan base, and the group’s desire to do something special for them.
“We also wanted to do something different than our usual set for Guelph. We are lucky enough to have a core group of fans here who come out to all of our shows, some since our very first shows in 2012, and we picked up many new ones over our monthly District residency last fall. Because of the short time frame of those shows, we weren’t able to change up the repertoire as much as we would have liked, so we played similar songs save for a few new ones at each show. As a band, we take a long time to write new songs. We have a very long formative process because each of us have a lot of input in the songwriting process; rather than one or two strong voices, we have six. And we don’t like to rush the songs until we think they are ready. We have some good material that just sits for months before we finish it. We didn’t have time to write a much new material for those shows, so we wanted to come back in 2015 with something totally new for everyone here in Guelph. That really motivated us to put the wheels in motion to perform Dark Side [of the Moon].”
At the end of the set, the crowd shouted for an encore and pressed on until the band decided to come back on stage, and closed the night with a few more songs from their EP Into the Digital Age. As a band who loves to please their fans and are genuinely passionate about their music, here’s to a great start to 2015 and hoping for more Tear Away Tusa in the coming year.