AN EVENING WITH STRANGE ADVANCE
Where: Capital Ballroom, 858 Yates St.
When: Saturday, May 13, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $69.25 from admitone.com
Strange Advance came together as a unit in 1982, primarily for studio purposes. Live performances were never a priority for the Vancouver band, despite developing a cult following and earning Juno Award nominations for most promising group of the year (1983) and group of the year (1985).
Not only did touring not interest the Vancouver synth-pop group, it was barely a consideration. Only now, as the band readies its return after breaking up in the '90s has it become an idea worth considering.
“We have played no more than 20 or 25 shows,” said Strange Advance co-founder Drew Arnott, who lives in White Rock. “I don’t know if we were ultra lazy, or what it was. We didn’t have any big interest in touring. It wasn’t our thing.”
Planning their return to the stage, to mark 40 years as a group, has been difficult. The hiccups go back several years, to when the band was told during rehearsals for its first comeback tour, in 2019, that the dates had been delayed. Another postponement, due to the pandemic, followed. “Our entire history can be encapsulated by two steps forward, one step back,” Arnott said.
Now, nearly four years after Arnott pushed for the band to return, finding a suitable venue has made tour preparations difficult. Arnott — the de facto booking agent for the group — has pulled together five upcoming dates, including the band’s first-ever performance in Victoria on Saturday.
“I’m not shocked that we’ve never played Victoria. We’ve never played Calgary or Edmonton, either. There’s a lot of places we missed the first time out. We didn’t really like to tour back then. We were studio cats.”
Tickets to the band’s Victoria debut are $69.25 each. Though expensive, that’s because Arnott refused to compromise the quality, especially when live performances by Strange Advance are infrequent.
“We have a ton of equipment — lasers, projectors, you name it. We want to put on a show. It looks great, and it’s a fun show to watch. But it’s a very expensive process. I guess I’m a romantic at heart. I want to give people the show I wanted to give them back in the ’80s, when we had a record label behind us and an unlimited budget. Fans are going to get to see us in the best possible light.”
When the band founded by drummer-keyboardist Arnott and singer-guitarist Darryl Kromm released its debut album, Worlds Away, in 1982, synth-pop was lurking in the shadows. When music video network MuchMusic launched in 1984, the doors of opportunity were blown wide open. Before long, Canada was drawing attention for a number of electronic-accented pop acts, including Men Without Hats, Spoons, Images in Vogue, and Platinum Blonde.
Strange Advance was firmly among them, and continued their rise with successful albums (1985’s 2wo and 1988’s The Distance Between) and hit songs (We Run and Love Becomes Electric) before eventually fizzling out. Kromm’s aversion to touring limited the potential for a comeback, and Strange Advance went dark for more than 30 years. While Kromm is not part of the reunion tour, a number of musicians with ties to the ’80s-era lineup are joining Arnott for the upcoming dates.
“I know occasionally people will say, ‘You should have been bigger,’ but I’m happy,” Arnott said. “We have some fans out there. And with social media, we can connect with those fans.”
