European invasion Manitoba musicians take their songs overseas — and even make a bit of money By: Alan Small Posted: 2:45 PM CST Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/11/2023 (1031 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s finest were in England in 1943 with their sights set on France, the Netherlands and Germany, aiming to prove what the best from this province could do when the world was watching.

Another group of Manitobans have their minds on Europe 80 years later, only this time they’re armed with guitars, drums and amps rather than rifles, grenades and tanks, and they expect a far more welcoming response when they make landfall than their forebears received.

This coming week, for instance, William Prince, who has become musical royalty in Peguis First Nation, will be in the land of Prince William to play a string of concerts in London, Manchester, Bath and Glasgow, following a set of similar shows in the Netherlands and Germany he performed earlier this month.

Winnipeg singer-songwriters Begonia and Leith Ross are touring Europe together in November and will be in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne this week to capture new fans in Germany.

And the Bros. Landreth, fresh off a Juno Award for contemporary roots album of the year, take off for Europe next week for a 14-city tour that spans four countries, highlighted by a Dec. 1 concert at London’s Cadogan Hall, home of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a half-hour walk from Buckingham Palace.

“I’m excited. I always love representing Winnipeg wherever I go. I’m proud to be from here,” Alexa Dirks, the person behind the Begonia persona, said prior to leaving for Europe. “I don’t want to have too many plans, I don’t want to have too many expectations.

“Sometimes, on the road, we can be underdogs a little bit, but at the same time, people are learning more and more about the amazing (music) community in Winnipeg and I’m proud to be a part of it and I’m proud to wave that flag wherever I go.”

KEN Mode, the Winnipeg metallic-noise outfit that has its own Juno hardware, toured seven European countries in September and October and found lucrative ground for its sound in support of its new album, Void.

Vocalist Jesse Matthewson says it’s the first time the band has made money touring since he formed KEN Mode with his younger brother Shane in 1999, and that’s after “dropping eight grand on flights for the four of us,” and renting a van and other equipment they couldn’t bring from Winnipeg.

“Not that I’m ever going to count on that, but it’s cool to come back and have a little bit of cash in your pocket as opposed to debt,” Jesse says of the European tour, KEN Mode’s first across the pond since 2019.

“The fact we’re now taking time away from our businesses and actually making money is sweet.”

When they aren’t playing in KEN Mode, Jesse is director of artist services for MKM Management Services, a city firm the University of Manitoba business school graduate formed with Shane, a chartered accountant, to help other artists with grant applications, merchandise management, marketing and income taxes.

“For a band like us, you need to tour behind (an album) for it to go anywhere, so touring is an inevitability and the admin with that is generally not fun to co-ordinate,” Jesse says.

While touring from city to city and playing in strange new venues is part of the concert-tour deal, putting all the gear on a plane and hoping it meets you at your destination is among the chief concerns Canadian artists face when they choose European cities as tour destinations.

KEN Mode flew from Winnipeg to Porto, Portugal, via Montreal and Lisbon, for a festival followed by another flight to Paris, where they began travelling to shows in France, Germany, Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands by van, before taking a ferry across the English Channel for two more dates in England.

“Please let our gear land with us,” the elder Matthewson says of what goes through his mind on the flight across the Atlantic.

“I’d argue we don’t breathe that sigh of relief until we start the first show, do sound-check and all of our gear works and it’s functioning the way it’s supposed to. We’ve had tours where all our gear showed up and something’s broken that’s integral to the entire process.

“We were supremely lucky that nothing went wrong.”

The bottom line is the biggest reason why Manitoba acts tour Europe, even if the venues are far smaller than they’re used to at home. Dues must be paid to introduce new sets of ears to music.

Prince played a sold-out crowd of about 100 people, including expat Winnipeggers, at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, Netherlands — a city liberated by the Canadian Corps in May 1945 — which will pale in comparison to the crowd that will attend his March 2 gig at Winnipeg’s Centennial Concert Hall.

”There’s got to be a reason for an artist to go over to Europe. There has to be a demand for their shows,” says Stu Anderson, a co-founder of Winnipeg label Birthday Cake Records, who manages the Bros. Landreth, Begonia, Ross and other Manitoba acts such as Boy Golden and Field Guide.

While these artists have toured the United States as well, rising up-front costs have become a barrier to entry for many Canadian performing artists. The U.S.’s philosophy of “Made in America” applies to music just as much as it does to softwood lumber, and performers can’t play shows legally by showing a passport to a border guard.

Musicians from abroad who wish to perform south of the border must obtain a P2 visa, which can take up to 120 days to process by the Department of Homeland Security. The cost is $460 for the visa, and rush orders require $2,500. Road managers and technical crews need to acquire their own separate visas to be able to work with an artist.

Union fees and costs for the bank drafts — Homeland Security doesn’t take American Express, or any other credit card for that matter — add to the expenses that must be paid before one note is played.

These costs dwarf those charged by European countries, even if Brexit, the U.K.’s decision to leave the European Union, has added additional paperwork and costs for Canadian artists.

“There’s minimal visa issues. There’s so many places to play, the drives are shorter, the crowds are very warm and welcoming. There’s a bit of an international appeal in Europe, when Canadian bands come over,” Anderson says.

“There’s minimal visa issues. There’s so many places to play, the drives are shorter, the crowds are very warm and welcoming. There’s a bit of an international appeal in Europe, when Canadian bands come over,”–Stu Anderson

“There are some artists we work with, their European and British fanbases are so much bigger than they are in North America. (Fans) seem to be more invested, long-term, and they’ll show up any time you go there.”

For KEN Mode, the 2023 European experience has emboldened the quartet, which also includes bassist Skot Hamilton and Kathryn Kerr on saxophone and keyboards, to give Europe another go in 2024, with additional shows in the U.K., and perhaps Scandinavia, a hotbed for heavy metal.

“When it comes time to actual touring, I’m stressed out about the performance side, I’m stressed out about all the economics of it, all the merchandising,” Jesse Matthewson says.

“But actually getting in the van and hanging out with my brother and my friends and going to restaurants I wouldn’t otherwise get to go to and meeting like-minded people who like similar music and like similar things, it’s the best parts of travel that kind of reinstate your faith in humanity.

“That side of it continues to make it worthwhile.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

X: @AlanDSmall