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Crash Test Dummies collide with Sidney

IN CONCERT What: Crash Test Dummies Where: Charlie White Theatre, 2243 Beacon Ave., Sidney When: Thursday and Friday, Aug. 8 and 9, 7:30 p.m.
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Crash Test Dummies singer Brad Roberts, whose deep bass-baritone voice and literary bent are among the bandÕs defining features.

IN CONCERT

What: Crash Test Dummies
Where: Charlie White Theatre, 2243 Beacon Ave., Sidney
When: Thursday and Friday, Aug. 8 and 9, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: Sold out

Ellen Reid says she will be thankful for the opportunity to perform when she arrives in Sidney today for the first of two sold-out performances with the Crash Test Dummies, their first in the area in close to a decade.

“We have never taken anything for granted,” Reid said of the band she co-founded in 1988. “We’re lucky little bananas.”

Though the group has only played Victoria a handful of times, she can still recall the concert they played here in 1994 at the peak of their fame. That was a banner year for the Winnipeg group, who had a commercial breakout in 1993 with the album, God Shuffled His Feet.

The worldwide tour to support the multi-platinum recording brought the group to Victoria for an Inner Harbour performance as part of the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

The show, with a rumoured 50,000 people in attendance, remains one of the stranger experiences for the group to this day, Reid said.

The Crash Test Dummies had to leave the city shortly after the show, in order to make a flight off the Island. A police escort was arranged to make the connection, but the vehicle had to be driven through the crowd in order to exit. The vehicle carrying the band was effectively mobbed on the way out of the downtown core.

“A police escort to the airport? I remember thinking: ‘I guess we’re special people now,’ ” Reid said with a laugh. “We felt ridiculous, but it was so nice.”

Reid has been going through similar stories with members of the press in other cities as the group continues its reunion tour across Canada.

The trek got underway last year, with core members Brad Roberts, Dan Roberts, Mitch Dorge and Reid all on board, to mark the 25th anniversary of God Shuffled His Feet.

The reunion tour shows no signs of slowing, with concerts booked “well into 2020,” according to Reid. Shows in Sidney tonight and tomorrow are both sold out.

At some point, the “reunion” tag will be retired and the group will continue as a long-term entity.

“I think we have to take it a bit at a time,” Reid said.

“As long as we are able to get shows booked and people want to come, we will continue touring. Because we are having fun. We’re doing it at a pace that is manageable. We are doing a lot of shows in a short period of time, but then we get two weeks off, or three weeks off.

“We can still have lives and be healthy, but get to a lot of people.”

The Crash Test Dummies will be playing the entirety of God Shuffled His Feet during their two performances at the 315-seat Charlie White Theatre, with help from longtime touring members Stuart Cameron and Murray Pulver. (The only original member missing from the tour is Benjamin Darvill, who left the band in 2000 to focus on his solo career under the moniker Son of Dave. He will perform in Victoria on Aug. 29 at Hermann’s Jazz Club.) Though its members are spread out across North America — members live in both Winnipeg and Toronto, while Brad Roberts lives in New York — the tour has been a bonding experience for everyone involved, Reid said.

A show in Winnipeg this summer was a highlight, but she said the entirety of the tour has been a wonderful experience for the group. “I can’t think of a Canadian city where we haven’t had a good time, or had a bad reception. It has all been really good.”

The band is also playing hits from elsewhere in its career, which has kept the diehards happy. Audiences gladly follow the band on its music journey each night, Reid said.

Her favourite song to play on this tour is Put a Face, which closes the band’s 2010 album, Oooh La La!, and the crowd reception tells her that the band’s reunion was much-needed for many fans.

“They always stop and listen to that song,” she said.

“And that’s unusual for a ballad like this, because it’s not one of our hits from one of our big records. But it’s a showstopper. I think it’s probably the best song Brad has ever written.”

Reid maintains the group “was in the right place at the right time” when it broke big in 1993.

At its peak, God Shuffled His Feet was selling 10,000 a day, on its way to career sales of more than three million copies. The record netted the band three Grammy nominations and five Juno nominations, primarily on the strength of Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, which peaked at No. 4 on the U.S. singles charts.

Their hit streak came to a halt in 1996 with the commercial failure of 1996’s A Worm’s Life. After another bomb, 1999’s Give Yourself a Hand, the original group disbanded.

Reid wasn’t surprised when their commercial fortunes fell off a cliff, as the group — which had always revolved around Brad Roberts, his deep bass-baritone voice and literary bent — were never what some would consider radio friendly. They were embraced by radio programmers when the medium was as at its most ambitious, she said.

“As odd as our situation is, with the deep voice and quirky songs, weird and quirky bands were special then. Radio and record labels were more receptive to different kinds of things back then. They were looking for the most-different thing they could find.

“We were super-fortunate. If we had shown up five years later, or five years earlier, it would have been no dice.

“We are a great band and we have great songs, but there are hundreds of really great band with really great songs who will never get out of their local pub. It’s a crapshoot, and we just got lucky.”

mdevlin@timescolonist.com