Hippie Daze
The fourth annual summer of love event on
Saturday 15 August was another great success; each year the event gets better.
The Loyalists chose to play early – we opened the show on the Cypress stage at
11:00 am. As usual Anton and I arrived in Kits, found a parking spot and walked
up Fourth Avenue carrying our guitars just like we used to do in the sixties.
The morning was wonderfully cool – a definite advantage to playing early. The
stage crew had everything well set up by the time we arrived and the stage
manager – a fine drummer – treated everyone to some solid drum beats at the end
of which I expressed my appreciation to which he responded that he was ‘just
warming up’…I’d like to hear him after he’s warmed up! At the appointed hour we
four Loyalists, Rick, Anton, Richard and myself, ascended the stage and assumed
our traditional positions: Rick stage left, Anton stage right, me in the middle
and Richard behind the drums and after a fine introduction by Michael Willmore, we played our opener, and instrumental called
‘What Can I Say’ written by Anton. The set list: What Can I Say, Most Likely
You’ll Go Your Way, Under My Thumb, New Minglewood
Blues, I Know You Rider, Tired Eyes, Cold Rain & Snow, Buffalo Wilkie, No No No,
Otis.
After our set quite a number of people came
by to say hello and thanked us for playing and recalled the many times they had
seen us play 40 years ago during the sixties, that incredible era that left its
indelible mark on those of us fortunate enough to have been there. As always,
one of our most loyal fans, Susan, came to the event and watched us play just
as she had done many times in the past. On a fateful day forty-two years ago,
she had first seen us play outdoors in an empty lot beside the Bistro, and had
been completely struck, not only by the sound of the United Empire Loyalists,
but by the LOOK!
Hippie Daze
It looks like the Loyalists will be playing again at this year's
Hippie Daze event on August 15, 2009. This will be our fourth appearance at the
event and we always enjoy getting up on stage and reliving those halcyon days.
So if you're planning to be in Vancouver on that day, come on down to 4th
Avenue and catch our set.
http://www.kitsilano4thavenue.com/Events
Book Release
Ryan Edwardson's http://www.ryanedwardson.com/home.html new book, Canuck Rock: A History of Canadian
Popular Music is scheduled for publication in the Fall
of 2009 by The University of Toronto Press. Ryan interviewed me a year or so
ago and apparently the Loyalists will be mentioned in the book as well as
material from the interview and a photo. He also emailed me to let me know that
Bob Masse posters for the first Grateful Dead/UEL concert in Vancouver were for
sale on eBay. Neptoon Records http://www.neptoon.com/
here in Vancouver had one in stock so I bought it for my collection.
Apparently this poster will feature in Ryan's book. I'm certainly
curious to see how history remembers us.
And speaking of history, the Vancouver Museum has a Sixties
Exhibit which includes a mention of the Loyalists; you can press a button and
hear us play No No No.
http://www.vanmuseum.bc.ca/
Jeff