Petric primed to play

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This article was published 08/09/2021 (1571 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Transcona country band Petric hasn’t performed live in 18 months, but they haven’t spent their pandemic pause as couch potatoes.

The group, which includes brothers Jason and Tom Petric, guitarist Jason Day, bassist Ben Mak and drummer Jon Plett, recorded an album, Flashbacks prior to the pandemic, and those songs allowed Petric to keep gaining traction in social media. Flashbacks finally was released in January 2021 and further singles have followed on its footsteps.

Flashbacks helped Petric earn 12 nominations for the Manitoba Country Music Awards, including for Group or Duo of the Year, Album of the Year and two nominations for Song of the Year for Déjà Vu and Something to Do With You, which were announced last week.

“Nobody has ever received 12 nominations before, so we are pretty excited and pretty proud of that,” Jason Petric says. “There is so much great music and great new artists coming out of our province, it really is an honour to get that kind of recognition.”

Petric’s latest, Safe With Me, which is about a boy and his dog, stars Winnipeg Blue Bombers receiver Drew Wolitarsky, who spent his time away from the gridiron in 2020 by starting a music career under the stage name Drew William.

“He’s an unbelievably hard-working guy. He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met,” Jason Petric says. “I got to see him as an artist in the past year and working with him in our video, so it’s fun to watch him catch a pass and lay the boom on a player. It’s really great.”

Petric’s next step is performing live again, but plans they have made have been put on hold. The group was to be part of the Friday night lineup of Country Summer, a two-night country-music event at Assiniboia Downs, but organizers announced Tuesday morning that the shows will be postponed, with the future date and venue remaining unknown.

If learning about the ups and downs of the music business wasn’t enough, family matters have also kept band members busy. Two members of Petric became fathers in 2021: Jason Petric’s son Presley is eight months old, born shortly after the release of Flashbacks, while Day’s son Odin is two months old.

“I hate to say it this way because I know a lot of people have suffered and there’s been a lot of tragedy, but it’s been one of the best years of my life, and I think Jordan probably would say the same thing,“ Jason Petric says. “We still found ways to stay busy with music, be creative, but we have had time to stay at home and nurture our family… I think we’re about to turn the page into another fantastic chapter of our lives.”

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● Loreena McKennitt, the Morden-born world-music singer and composer, will mark the 30th anniversary of The Visit, an album that sold more than two million copies worldwide and is considered by fans and critics as her breakthrough recording.

She will release The Visit: The Definitive Edition box set on Sept. 24, which will be a limited-edition, four-CD and one audio Blu-Ray disk collection that includes a 32-page illustrated booklet and hours of unreleased content, such as her first surround-sound mixes of her music.

There will also be a 15-song highlights edition available for streaming services and for download that includes the original album and six live tracks recorded in concert or for radio.

● Winnipeg’s Joey Landreth has announced he’ll release a new album titled All That You Dream, which will be a set of covers from songwriter Lowell George, who is known for being part of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention as well as the country-rock group Little Feat. The album comes out Nov. 26.

Landreth had been releasing videos in the past 18 months that hinted this latest direction.

“I grew up listening to Lowell George and he is a hero of mine, so I was determined to do these songs justice, which is partly why it took a while to get to this point,” he says in a release.

● City indie artist Nic Dyson released a new single, Blue Hatchback, on Sept. 3 that is a preview to the release of an EP, Brain Fog, which drops Oct. 15.

Dyson received some worldwide attention in 2020 when he appeared on CNN after connecting with his cousin Jake Tapper, who is the lead Washington, D.C., anchor for the U.S. news channel. Tapper had been searching for ancestors and family members on Ancestry.com and came across Dyson and his music.

● Tuesday proved to be a busy day for concert announcements in Winnipeg. Club Regent Event Centre announced Doc Walker, the Portage la Prairie country duo, will play the casino venue Nov. 5 and Canadian music legend Gordon Lightfoot will take the same stage Nov. 21. Tickets for both shows go on sale Friday at casinosofwinnipeg.com with Doc Walker ticket prices starting at $34 and prices for Lightfoot’s concert starting at $49 plus fees.

The Glenn Miller Orchestra will bring its Swing Era sounds to the Centennial Concert Hall on April 10, 2022, with tickets going on sale Friday, ranging in price from $52-$83 plus fees, available at CentennialConcertHall.com.

alan.small@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@AlanDSmall