The curtain’s coming down Saturday night on 20 years of a Cochrane-based band that had a gig… before the band.
Lift originally got together to open for The Stampeders at a poker run for the snowmobile club. Since then, vocalist Eric Langlois, guitarist Darren Axcell, bass guitarist John Spicer and drummer André Boucher have been gigging, mostly at festivals around the north.
Langlois says Boucher is moving to Senneterre, which prevents the band from remaining active.
“So we’re having a last show with the original line-up and possibly with the end of the name,” he explains, “so we’ll just enjoy that last show, the four of us together.”
Langlois says the band has always bragged that it plays everyhing from ABBA To ZZTop, with some Billy Joel, Ozzy Osbourne and a few original songs thrown in.
The show is Saturday night at the Tim Horton Events Centre. Ten-dollar admission tickets are going fast. All the proceeds go to Cochrane Minor Hockey.
Langlois notes that a lot of marriages don’t last 20 years. The remaining three band members might stay together and recruit a drummer, but Langlois says the name will likely be retired.
What he’ll miss the most about those 20 years is the friendship.
“I mean the music is great. Of course we gel, and the four of us – I always say the sum of Lift is much greater than the individual parts. So it’s basically just the chemistry we’ve had from Day 1.”
