For a seasoned road warrior like Alan Doyle, his first full-band shows in Halifax this past weekend felt like a victory.
The Newfoundland songwriter held sway over physically distanced crowds during a four-show run at the Halifax Convention Centre with his Beautiful, Beautiful Band for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the concept of concert tours back in March.
While in town for the shows, Doyle sat down for a chat with the SaltWire Network to talk about the shows and a raft of current projects that prove when things are down, he can still be up.
Alan Doyle discusses getting back on stage, making music during quarantine and releasing his third book with the SaltWire Network's Stephen Cooke — Video by Eric Wynne
“It was a great thrill,” says Doyle of the shows, after riding a wave of performance-pumped adrenalin through the weekend. “I think a lot of people were wondering what it would be like, me included, but I was delighted to see two things.
“First of all, I was delighted just to stand in front of people again, and I was equally delighted people were having such a good time, even with the new rules and new circumstances we have to go to concerts in right now.”
Doyle got his first taste of playing live again with a couple of October trio shows at Charlottetown’s Trailside Music Hall with Newfoundland guitarist Cory Tetford and B.C.-based singer/violinist Kendel Carson, who went through the 14-day quarantine to join her bandmates.
"It’s a real show of support for the industry, and a response to a dark time when lovers of music — those of us who play it and those of us who listen to it — are just doing whatever we can to get together."
While the shows are a sign that players are finding ways to make the music flow again, Doyle says the concerts that have begun to happen within the Atlantic bubble highlight the yin and yang relationship between artists and their audience.
“It’s something really beautiful and really cool, because it’s a real show of support for the industry, and a response to a dark time when lovers of music — those of us who play it and those of us who listen to it — are just doing whatever we can to get together,” he reasons.
“Every crowd needs a band and every band needs a crowd, and we’ve figured out a way to do it.”
The COVID-19 pandemic arrived in North America just as Doyle and his band were about to begin another leg of the Rough Side Out Tour, following that last show on March 8 at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
After feeling like he’d had his road legs knocked out from beneath him, Doyle channeled that restless energy into multiple projects through the spring and summer, including a new EP titled Songs From Home, a new book of Newfoundland stories for Random House Canada titled All Together Now and a series of online Singalong Supper shows that raised thousands of dollars for charities doing work in the fields in mental health and addiction. On top of all that, there’s also the musical Tell Tale Harbour he's developing for the Charlottetown Festival, adapted from the Newfoundland-shot comedy The Great Seduction.
“The summer at home was fun, I confess. I haven’t had a summer off since I was 12, so I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t kind of enjoy the eight or 10 weeks of the summer, but I knew that September would hit me like a brick,” says Doyle, who praises the arrival of the Atlantic bubble for making his mainland activities possible.
“The summer at home was fun, I confess. I haven’t had a summer off since I was 12, so I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t kind of enjoy the eight or 10 weeks of the summer, but I knew that September would hit me like a brick."
Of course, you can’t tour the bubble forever, and Doyle considers all the things he’s missed over more than two seasons like traveling, hanging out with his fellow musicians and watching hockey playoffs on the tour bus, plus interacting with fans onstage and off. “It’s a very, very odd feeling for me to not have done any of that in about eight months.”
Those who missed out on this weekend’s Halifax shows have an opportunity to enjoy an intimate Doyle show remotely, when he streams two nights from downtown St. John’s Yellowbelly Brewery on Friday and Saturday.
The special shows are in support of his new EP Songs From Home, which was produced over the summer in St. John’s with well-known Newfoundland artists like the Ennis Sisters, the Once, Fortunate Ones and Rachel Cousins.
It's OK from Alan Doyle’s new EP Songs From Home features a Newfoundland choir of the Ennis Sisters, the Once, Fortunate Ones and Rachel Cousins.
All of Doyle’s guests recorded their parts at home and sent them along to him in his home studio in a grand show of “Newfoundlanders finding a way to get together no matter what,” he grins.
“We’re all super proud of it because we had to all learn to make music in a way that we’re not accustomed to doing it. I’ve been making music over the internet, going back-and-forth with people in Nashville and Sweden and Australia for a while, but most of the other bands weren’t used to it.
“It was cool to show other people, and learn from other people, a new way to make music when we can’t do the things that we normally do.”
From the stage to the page
While they’re listening to Songs From Home, Doyle’s fans can pore over his new book All Together Now: A Newfoundlander’s Light Tales for Heavy Times. Following his memoirs Where I Belong and A Newfoundlander in Canada, it’s Doyle’s fourth book concept and the third to be published. Another project requiring travel around his home province and overseas to Ireland and the U.K. remains in progress.
Shortly after the pandemic put Doyle on indefinite tour hiatus, his publishers at Penguin Random House Canada asked him if he had ideas for a book that could come out this fall, something heartwarming and fun that he could write in six weeks.
"I created a fictional, but very typical night at the pub in St. John’s, where you might be sitting up in the corner at the Duke, and four hours later everyone’s still talking."
Taking the short deadline in stride, the singer compiled a set of short tales of funny, amusing things that have happened to him or around him on the road or at home, the kind often told to friends or curious listeners at a favourite watering hole or around a summer campfire.
“They’re really meant for everyone to have a smile, occasionally. It’s the kind of book you can read a story, then pick it up again two weeks later and read another one,” says Doyle.
“So the idea came of having these random stories and I wondered how we could frame it, somewhat. So I created a fictional, but very typical night at the pub in St. John’s, where you might be sitting up in the corner at the Duke, and four hours later everyone’s still talking.
“The stories like the ones in my book are meant to be shared, with great joy.”
