Long, winding road

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/01/2020 (2393 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Not long ago, Wayne Hlady, the lone, original member of Free Ride, a multidimensional tribute act that will toast its 40th anniversary Jan. 10 with an all-ages show at the Club Regent Event Centre, responded to an online ad posted by a person selling a pair of loudspeakers.

Upon hooking up, the fellow behind the ad studied Hlady, recognizable by his perfectly coifed mop top hairstyle, up and down before excitedly announcing, “Hey, you’re that guy from Free Ride, aren’t you?”

Hlady acknowledged that was indeed the case; at which point the man relayed a story about seeing Free Ride, whose members mimic the Beatles, Rolling Stones and a fictitious, ‘50s-flavoured greaser outfit dubbed Harry and the Armpits, often all three on the same night, for the first time in the early 1980s at a nightclub in St. Vital.

Furthermore, he mentioned taking his family to see the band in 2010 when Free Ride appeared as the Fab Four at the Manitoba Museum as part of a travelling exhibit called The Beatles! Backstage & Behind the Scenes. He wanted Hlady to know the effect that particular performance had on his teenage son, whom he described as a “complete Beatles nut.”

“He said his kid was so blown away by what he’d seen and heard that during the ride home he announced he was going to become a musician, too,” says Hlady, who grew up in Cooks Creek and presently lives with his wife Sheila near Birds Hill Provincial Park.

“It struck me as ironic that this guy’s son was inspired to play music after seeing us as the Beatles, given the fact the Beatles were the ones responsible for so many people my age picking up an instrument in the first place.”

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Hlady, the youngest of five brothers, took up the drums at the age of 12. A quick study, he was only 14 years old in 1976 when he began keeping the beat for an early incarnation of Free Ride, a four-piece unit that provided live entertainment seven nights a week during the summer months aboard the M.S. Paddlewheel Queen.

Performing on the riverboat was great fun, Hlady recalls, but in 1979, by which time everyone in the group was old enough to land steady work in Winnipeg’s bustling bar circuit, they decided to transform themselves from a cover band pumping out Top 40 hits into the second coming of the best-selling rock band of all time.

The reason for the switchover was simple: during their tenure on the Paddlewheel, Hlady & Co. always made a point of sprinkling a few Beatles tunes into their shows, crowd-pleasers such as She Loves You and I Want to Hold Your Hand that routinely filled the dance floor.

Now that the four of them intended to make music their full-time vocation, they figured why not take things a step further by recreating the Beatles onstage, night after night after night?

For four months beginning in October 1979, Hlady-as-Ringo, Rick Kosheluk (Paul), Brent Degryse (George) and Tom Pshednovak (John) spent 10 hours a day, seven days a week, holed up in the Tyndall Motor Hotel. There, equipped with mirrors and video gear, they worked on perfecting the Beatles’ playing style, right down to Kosheluk learning to play bass guitar left-handed, the same as McCartney.

They also did their best to duplicate the Liverpudlians’ look by purchasing stitch-for-stich recreations of the Beatles’ so-called “Sullivan suits,” named for the group’s historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964.

On Feb. 4, 1980, Free Ride made its official debut downstairs at the Osborne Village Motor Inn. Midway through their first selection of the night — Hlady believes it was Love Me Do — they were pretty sure they’d struck a chord with the audience.

“Everybody in the room was on their feet, singing and applauding,” Hlady says, noting it wasn’t until about six months later that they added an Elvis component to the mix, and three years after that when they began returning to the stage toward the end of the night posing as the Stones.

“I remember Tom looking back at me with this amused look on his face as if to say, ‘Can you believe this?’”

Word about the guys’ bang-on Beatles impersonation spread quickly. By July of that same year it wasn’t unusual for the lads to peer out into the crowd of whatever watering hole they were booked at and spot famous faces; members of recording acts such as Streetheart and Harlequin who’d heard about “this crazy Beatles band” and wanted to check them out in person.

As was widely reported at the time, Free Ride’s big break occurred in April 1981, when they were invited to New Jersey to perform at the newly opened Atlantic City Playboy Hotel & Casino. Funny thing was, when the four of them hit the road in a rented van, they assumed upon arrival they would be playing for gamblers and hotel guests in the US$130 million complex’s lounge.

As it turned out, they were actually slated for a private party hosted by none other than Playboy founder Hugh Hefner himself, an ultra-lavish affair attended by the likes of singer Diana Ross and comedian Gabe Kaplan.

“Hefner arrived in the middle of our second set and after a few bunnies dragged him up onto the dance floor, he smiled at us and gave us this big thumbs-up,” Hlady says, handing over a photocopy of a 1981 Winnipeg Sun column written by the late Gene Telpner that touched on that bit of news.

“At the end of the night we went back to our dressing room, at which point this New York talent agent knocked on the door, saying, ‘Guys, fantastic show, but if you want to do something right for your career, this is the time to do it. Mr. Hefner wants an encore.’”

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A meticulous sort, Hlady, a father of two and grandfather of three, maintains a spreadsheet outlining the date and location of every Free Ride show since the band’s formation. In 1984, for example, they played a Christmas Eve concert for inmates at Stony Mountain Institution while on Oct. 15, 1999 they were triple-booked, first at a bar mitzvah, then at a high school reunion and finally at the Palomino Club, where, still full of energy, they stepped onstage at midnight. (In October 1985, the band flew to Kyoto, Japan, where they were headlined a Beatles fan club festival four Saturday nights in a row.)

Nowadays their schedule, made up primarily of private parties, corporate gigs and special events such as Winnipeg Beach’s Boardwalk Days, Lockport’s Rockin’ on the Red festival and the Winnipeg Goldeyes’ Turn Back the Clock Night, is a bit less hectic.

Part of that has to do with the current band members’ ages; Hlady’s older brother Jerry is in his late 60s. And a lot has to do with Hlady’s ongoing role as vice-president of Bravo Concert Productions, an entertainment firm that books tribute acts in bars and casinos from coast to coast copycatting the likes of Neil Diamond (Nearly Neil), Johnny Cash (Cold Hard Cash) and AC/DC (Whole Lotta Angus).

As a matter of fact, the newest member of Free Ride, Justin Seguin, was added to the fold after Hlady saw him impersonate Judas Priest singer Rob Halford in the Winnipeg-based tribute act Metal Gods. Besides serving as Free Ride’s “new” Mick Jagger, Seguin also does an “amazing David Bowie,” Hlady says, which inspired the band to introduce something new to its repertoire last year: a British icons set during which they present themselves as an early ‘70s rendition of McCartney, Lennon, Jagger and Bowie, gathered together for what’s billed as the concert they never gave.

“We did it for the first time at a tribute band festival at Assiniboia Downs last July and after Howard Mandshein introduced us, the crowd gave us a standing ovation before we even played a note,” Hlady says.

Besides Friday’s casino show, Free Ride has a few more things in the works specifically tied to their 40th anniversary. Without giving away too much, Hlady says one event will likely involve re-enacting the Beatles’ famous January 1969 rooftop performance, when they played together live for the final time atop their Apple Records headquarters on London’s Savile Row.

When asked whether after 40 years — 30 years longer, incidentally than the Beatles stayed together — he and his cohorts ever get tired of yeah, yeah, yeah-ing, Hlady shakes his head, echoing the words of a performer who routinely fields the same query.

“At this stage of my career, I totally get it when Paul McCartney says he does it for the audience, how that’s what keeps him going at the age of 77,” he says.

“We still get tons of people approaching us after a show telling us this was the first time they’d seen Free Ride, so there’s always a bit of added pressure to be at the top of our game every time out. What’s that saying, you never get a second chance to make a first impression? That’s been Free Ride’s motto since the day we started.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca