Coming face to face with a fan of The Smalls can be a rather intense prospect. The Edmonton punk/metal/rock hybrid band, who tore across Canada with their legendary live show in the ’90s, recently kicked the tires for the first time in 13 years and decided to reform for a Canadian tour. So just imagine what kind of response that got from their devoted fans, who we can only imagine have been cranking the band’s four albums in their music caves for over a decade, just waiting for the day the band got back together.
“It did surprise me how fast some of these venues sold out on the tour,” says singer Mike Caldwell. “I think the Vancouver venue sold out in like a day or something, and we had to add some more shows in some towns because there was a bit of an uproar from people who couldn’t get tickets in time. So we were pleasantly surprised at that.”
Recently, a couple of big festival appearances in Alberta marked the official return of The Smalls, whose members went their separate ways in 2001. According to Caldwell, the warm response the band got at the festival appearances wasn’t as surprising to them as the number of sold-out dates on their current tour.
“At the festivals you know there’s going to be a large crowd to see a show and rock out all day or whatever, so I expected the festivals to be a large crowd and a good response,” says Caldwell. “We had people coming up to see our set, including some of the other bands that were playing, so we actually got a pretty good percentage of people on the festival grounds come over and watch our set, which was cool.”
Caldwell, who has spent the past five years living and working in Victoria, played in a country cover band in Edmonton after The Smalls broke up, while guitarist Dug Bevans, bassist Corb Lund, and drummer Terry Johnson moved on to other musical projects, most notably Lund with his solo band Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans.
But throughout the years, wherever Caldwell went, it was The Smalls that people would ask him about.
“We worked pretty hard back then to play as much as we could, so the fans that did connect with our music, we were able to get back to their towns over and over again, and I think we became part of peoples’ lives, to a certain extent,” he says. “And I think it’s those people that are remembering us and are happy for another chance to relive it.”
Like the adage goes, rock and roll will never die, as long as people keep going out to rock shows and bands like The Smalls are willing to give it another go. But Caldwell hopes the audiences of their current Canadian shows include some youngsters as well.
“I’m not really sure what we’ll find in the clubs, as far the age of the audience,” he says. “I would expect it to be older, but I hope there will be people coming to see us for the first time, too. That would be nice.”
The Smalls
Saturday, November 8
$22, Sugar Nightclub
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