Spider Entertainment’s three-day classic rock festival Cornstock returns to Taber July 24-26.
This year’s lineup includes Streetheart, Sweet, Helix, Doug and the Slugs, Prism, Tom Cochrane, The Northern Pikes and Glass Tiger.
Glass Tiger formed in Newmarket, ON in 1981, and released the iconic The Thin Red Line in the late eighties. The album spawned many hits, including Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone) and Someday.
In 2023, Glass Tiger was inducted into Canada’s prestigious Walk of Fame.
Lead singer Alan Frew says the band enjoys coming out in the summer to be a part of festivals with multiple bands. “It’s just a fun thing to do for the summertime.”
“The shows we’ve done, people seem to be coming out in great numbers, and they’re ready to enjoy their bands or their genre of music,” adds Frew. “Everybody will get the full bang for the buck for sure.”
“The band’s playing at the top of its game, and touch wood, my voice is still at the top of its game and I’m still singing in all of the original keys we wrote the songs in back in the day. We’ll leave no stone unturned. We’ll give them a great show and give them everything they would expect and then some. There’s a couple of things we’ve slotted in the set we haven’t played in many years. They will get Glass Tiger at the top of its game,” notes Frew.
When not playing gigs with the band, Frew likes to paint, is working on a novel and he still loves to work with young talent.
“I know the Canadian music scene always has been and always will be vibrant. Filled with great talent. They follow in our footsteps,” Frew says.
As for Glass Tiger, Frew says the band was recorded live in Hamburg, Germany in 1987, “or whatever.” “We’re just talking about stuff like that and how it could be such fun to do a retro thing. You’re not kidding anybody. This is what they looked like, this is what they sounded like, and here it is and put it out there for fun.”
Frew says the band is always writing and shelving some great stuff. “We do have new music in the works no one has heard. It’s just a matter of cherry picking how you go about it.”
This year marks the 41st anniversary of The Northern Pikes, who formed in Saskatoon in 1984.
The band’s hits include Teenland, Girl With a Problem and She Ain’t Pretty.
Lead vocalist and bassist Jay Semko says the band’s busy time is usually during the summer months. “We have more fun now than we’ve ever had.”
“We play when we want to. There was a time in our careers when we felt we had to be on the road and playing all the time. We spent so much of our lives travelling and performing on the road. Now, we play when we want to. A lot of the gigs we do are in the summer. A lot of festivals, fairs and classic rock fests. It’s really fun,” Semko adds.
The reality, Semko explains, is the band lives in different places in Canada now. “There’s a little bit of manoeuvring to get us all together to get together to play shows. When we do, it’s so much fun. I feel like every show we do now is an event. It’s an event for us and they’re all completely different. You follow a setlist and we kind of follow a script to a certain extent, but a lot of times we just throw caution to the wind and let ‘er rip. That’s part of the fun and what rock and roll is all about.”
Of course, it’s an event for the audience too. “We savour every moment we’re on stage now.”
“Every time we get on the stage, we’re so grateful and appreciate it so much. The fact we get to go out and pretend we’re 20 years old again for a couple of hours. It’s pretty cool.”
The cool thing about festivals, Semko notes, is they draw people from a wide-variety of places.
“We’re lucky, we’ve built up a really great group of fans and friends over the years that have followed us and follow our music. There’s people that will travel from remote corners of Canada and beyond to come and see us play.”
Semko says The Pikes play the songs people are familiar with, and dig into some deep album tracks. “We play a couple of covers sometimes, which are kind of a surprise. It’s a veritable potpourri of Pikes music.”
Part of the fun performing at festivals, Semko adds, is the band has made so many friends over the years. “It’s old home week. You get to see people.”
“It’s such an amazing thing. You just feel so blessed to be able to get out and share the stage with so many great Canadian artists,” says Semko. “Canada, we’ve got to celebrate our legacy more than anyone. We have so much great music from the past and great music currently. We’ve got a lot of fantastic artists in Canada. We really need to keep boosting ourselves.”
Semko notes the last Pikes record was released in 2023, which was a reworking of previous tracks with a few new tracks recorded for the album.
The Pikes continue to record new music, as Semko has released a few solo albums, performs in a duo and still writes music for film and television. “I guess the most famous thing people would know from me would be the TV series Due South. I do a number of different things. I mentor a lot of people, I teach music and I do a lot of different things related to music.”
“I feel so grateful to have been able to have a life in music and still be able to do that,” Semko adds.
Cornstock will be held at the Legion Youth Centre in Taber. For more information about the festival or to purchase tickets visit online at spiderentertainment.ca/shows/cornstock-25.
(Photo submitted)
