http://battleshipbattleship.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/thrush-hermits-brief-reunion-tour/
I thought the ‘decade-in-review’ list crunch was behind us, but it seems indie rock can’t stop dialing back to 1999.
Pavement’s return was the first major announcement of the week, and it’s been followed up with the news that Maritime indie icons Thrush Hermit are reuniting for a mini-tour. It’s only eight shows, but dammit, that’s a mini-tour to me.
Though they’re now best known as the band that gave us Canada’s national treasure Joel Plaskett, Thrush Hermit were rising stars back in the mid-90s.
Along with Murderecords counterparts Sloan, they owned the burgeoning Halifax scene, which once was our up-and-coming indie hotbed, Canada’s own Seattle. (It ultimately took roughly eight extra years for that reputation to finally come to fruition in Canada, thanks to a bilingual city a little further west. But I digress.)
They couldn’t quite conquer the United States with 1997’s Sweet Homewrecker, so they returned to Canada and followed up with CanCon masterpiece Clayton Park in 1999. Check these albums out if you’re looking to get a little lesson in Canadian indie
history. Hearing a young Plaskett rocking out with his boys is a treat, and the material is a far cry from the glossy melodies he’s been churning out of late.
The reunion lineup consists of Plaskett, lead guitarist Rob Benvie, former Joel Plaskett Emergency bassist Ian McGettigan, and drummer Cliff Gibb, who was with the band in their 1994-1999 heyday.
I’m looking forward to their weekend in Toronto, and I’m confident they’ll play my favourite Hermit tune, “From the Back of the Film.”