“…For the lack of a better term,
the band is now happily retired.” Alan Doyle
Yesterday
a Canadian newspaper interview with Alan Doyle was circulated via social media
and in particular on the GBS Online Kitchen Party Facebook page. The interview
with Alan Doyle stated Great Big Sea were for “lack of a better word happily
retired.” The fans took to social media yet again (as they did two years ago
when Sean McCann announced he was leaving the band) to write about how much
Great Big Sea meant to them as a fan, what this meant for the fandom and their
future as fans. Some were upset they may never see the band together again and fans
comforted each other as they had done when Sean McCann first announced he was
quitting and left. Other fans wrote how grateful one of the band members of the
group had finally said it and they knew where they stood.
As
I skimmed through the posts it occurred to me many of the fans had failed to
read Bob Hallett’s tweet via Twitter today “It was news to him” they were
“happily retired”.
So
where does this leave the fandom? Some fans are still upset they may never see
the band that brought so much happiness, good times and memories to their
lives again. Other fans like me have moved on from Great Big Sea along with the
musicians themselves. While we are grateful in how their music and
personalities have changed our lives I personally am enjoying the Alan Doyle and The Beautiful Gypsies ride on the So Let’s Go Tour and now the Barenaked Ladies
Tour.
There is no shortage of music specials, videos, interviews, articles
and fan material to consume in that I am finding it difficult to keep up.
Other fans travel through the fandoms going to concerts, shows and movies of
Great Big Sea members and their friends. I gather for them the focus is on the
friendships they have made and the new music being produced.
I
believe the fans will see Great Big Sea again sooner rather than later. The
music industry is a hard business. For fans it doesn’t matter whether you go to
an Alan Doyle or a Sean McCann show you will always get a little bit of Great
Big Sea in the mix of their new music. Fans should not forget most of
all to be happy the boys of Great Big Sea are happy in their new solo careers
in life after Great Big Sea.
The
article is copied below and circulated on my Google + page.
‘Doyle’s loving
life as a solo act’ by Christopher Tessmer, for Regina
Leader-Post, Regina Leader~Post November 5, 2015 (no copyright infringement
intended)
Alan Doyle, best known as
frontman for the beloved folk pop-rock group Great Big Sea, knows all too well
how vast a country Canada is.
Touring in support of his second
solo album So Let’s Go, which includes a stop tonight at the Casino Regina Show
Lounge, the Newfoundlander travelled 11 hours by plane to the tour’s first gig
in Prince George.
“Everything is a little harder as
you get older,” he chuckles, describing the flights. “I still think it’s a
privilege to get to do what I do but the flights and all that stuff tend to
kick your butt. You sort of get used to it and it all works out and I’m just
grateful to get the gig.”
Although Doyle and his backing
band, The Beautiful Gypsies, have been making their way back to the East Coast
as the opening act for the Barenaked Ladies cross-Canada tour, the genial
musician will take advantage of tour day off with a headlining show here
tonight.
Not that being an opener for BNL
has really required a day off.
“I’d forgotten how wonderful it
is to be the opening act,” laughs Doyle, “because most of the nuts and bolts of
the touring is already handled. All of the stresses and energy that requires is
looked after by the headline act typically. It’s the Barenaked Ladies tour and
I’m just a guest and a support guy. We really don’t have to do a real lot
except show up and get the audience going.
“There’s a lot of interplay
between the two bands, and we’re jamming together and whatnot, but when you’re
touring as the opening band you tend to get all of the good parts and none of
the worst parts.”
Ask Doyle to play and chances are
he’ll find a way to show up.
“My heart and soul has always been
in playing concerts. I’m happy to be No. 1, 2, 3, 4, or 8 on a festival bill.
I’m always grateful just to be there, to be honest with you. It’s kind of nice
to have a bit of variety where sometimes you headline and other times you’re
supporting someone else, much like sometimes you play festivals and other times
you may be performing in a theatre. I really enjoy the variety of it all.”
Variety has been something the
46-year old entertainer has gotten accustomed to since Great Big Sea performed
their last show nearly two years ago.
“We’re all struggling to define
what the status of Great Big Sea is right now. As most people know, at the end
of 2013 — after our 20th Anniversary tour — Sean (McCann) quit and left the
band. We spent a length of time — a year or so — to find an amicable way that
Bob (Hallett) and I could continue without him. We couldn’t, so we came to the
realization that we didn’t want to go on like that. We don’t want to fight for
the spoils of it. For the lack of a better term, the band is now happily
retired.”
Without the commitment of Great
Big Sea, Doyle will not be lacking for things to do as Doyle enjoys being able
to set his own schedule giving him more time to be a father and husband, when
he’s not busy as an author, actor, music producer, and anything else people
throw his way.
“I’ve always had kind of a full
plate,” he acknowledges. “I have this new band that I’m touring with, The
Beautiful Gypsies, and I’m really, really loving playing with them and I look
forward to whatever comes next with those guys. It’s a great band, it’s great
fun, and it’s very versatile and I’m really enjoying it. People have been
really thrilled with this new band at concerts so it’s working out well I
think.
“They’re such good players in
their own right. I’ve known Corey Tetford for over 20 years in Newfoundland and
he’s one of the best guitarists and singers the province has ever produced. The
other players, Kendel (Carson), Kris (Macfarlane), Shehab (Illyas), and Todd
(Lumley) are equally great. It’s really fun to be surrounded by a freight train
of sound. It’s the kind that goes on without me and it’s something that I never
really had before being part of a pop-based band.
“Great Big Sea,” Doyle continues,
“was very intentionally melody-based between the singing and the acoustic
guitar. That was always the driving force, even after adding drums and other
instrumentation. It was always about Sean or myself on the acoustic guitars and
vocals. With this group that kind of structure can come from any of the six of
us onstage.”
Promising to play a set of songs
from his solo records, Great Big Sea catalogue, and Newfoundland traditional
music, Doyle likens it to “a real kitchen party night out.”
“We’re doing a full 90-minute set
in Regina, which I’m looking forward to as we haven’t played a lot since we
left for this tour. I’m looking forward to that, and I’ve never been to (the
Casino Regina Show Lounge) in all the times I’ve been to Regina. The last I
heard tickets were almost sold out for the show so people should gobble them
up. I’m also excited to be back there because I didn’t get to play there on the
last run. I’m so glad we get to come and it’s great that people are coming out
in such big numbers. It’s going to be awesome.
