What: Roots Roundup with Grossbuster
When: Thursday, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Upstairs Cabaret
Tickets: $15 at ticketweb.ca, Lyle’s Place and Ditch Records
The live music scene was a different beast during the early 1990s. Bands did not need to be famous to pack clubs around the city, just as long as two must-have components — high in quality, low in attitude — were straightened out.
That is how an independent, off-the-radar band like Roots Roundup could play three consecutive sold-out shows at the former Harpo’s Cabaret. Partial credit is due to the club itself, one of the finest and most varied rooms in Canada when it was running, but the band’s marathon live sets and rabid following could not be discounted, either.
The Vancouver roots group is credited with popularizing the reggae-influenced scene coming out of Vancouver at the time, and has more than a few Harpo’s credits worth bragging about. In 1992, the group headlined a local show that was opened by Gwen Stefani and a pre-fame No Doubt. Around the same time, the club paired Roots Roundup with reggae stars like Eek-a-Mouse and Bob Marley’s backing band, the Wailers — when it featured heavyweights Carlton and Aston Barrett, Junior Marvin and Al Anderson.
“Harpo’s was really something else,” singer Greg Hathaway said. “It was a good place for us to play for so many years.”
Roots Roundup will renew its bond with Harpo’s tonight at the Upstairs Cabaret, which occupies the former Harpo’s location in Bastion Square. The band’s epic three-day runs, which would happen every few months, are not being replicated nowadays, Hathaway said, but the group is shooting for the moon with its first Victoria performance since 1997.
The original Roots Roundup run, which lasted seven years, came to a halt in 1993. In the years since, Hathaway said the demand for the band never wavered, though reunions like the brief one in 2005 were exceedingly difficult to arrange due to the schedules of its members.
“All of us were playing with these different projects, and every single one of us found that everywhere we went, people talked to us about Roots Roundup and how much they missed the band.”
The current reunion tour — which features original members Hathaway, trombonist Dave Hannah, drummer Barry Taylor, bassist Keith Rose, guitarist David Hathaway, keyboardist Ford Pier, percussionist David Macanulty and guitarist Mark Campbell — has already taken Roots Roundup to places such as Roberts Creek for gigs, which have exceeded Hathaway’s modest expectations.
“We actually feel like we’re playing the music a little bit better,” he said. “We’ve all learned so much in the 20 years since we broke up, we’ve continued to learn a lot about playing music. The space we leave in the music, and the way we listen to each other and the dynamics, it is even stronger than it was before.”
The band’s sold-out date last month at the Fairview Pub in Vancouver is what prompted the long-awaited Victoria appearance. Further dates were quickly added, including stops Friday at Cumberland’s Waverly Hotel and Saturday at Cortes Island’s Gorge Hall. Roots Roundup isn’t putting a cap on future dates, either. The band will be on various Gulf Islands next month, after which they will collectively reassess their goals.
In the meantime, everyone in the group is having too much fun to give it up for good.