Playing for Portage

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This article was published 03/06/2021 (1786 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Doc Walker’s Chris Thorsteinson and Dave Wasyliw have never forgotten their Portage la Prairie-area roots.

As further proof, the Juno-winning Canadian country band that hails from tiny Westbourne, a short drive northwest of Portage, is lending its name and music to a livestream concert Thursday night in aid of the city’s Prairie Fusion Arts & Entertainment Centre.

“Portage has always been sort of the backbone of this band,” singer Thorsteinson says, “right from the get-go playing socials when we were 14, 15 years old, going to play around the legions in Portage and Gladstone.

“You hear a lot of different stories when bands get a little bit bigger, the hometown fades away. It never really happened with us.”

For the arts centre, the fundraising concert comes at a critical time. The pandemic has put a strain on the organization’s finances as the centre has not been able to host its annual fundraising gala the last two years.

“Being able to host this concert and have it be a fundraiser for our facility and organization is just huge for us,” says Stefanie McKim, Prairie Fusion’s executive director.

“I think we are seen as a vibrant jewel in our community.”

The non-profit centre is home to various arts programming, both visual and performing, courses and performances funded through the community during the course of the year. It relies on class registration, ticket sales, venue rentals and operating grants, allowing it to offer quality education at affordable prices while remaining inclusive, McKim said. That has been dramatically altered by the pandemic.

“For us, that means our entire income structure was wiped out,” McKim says.

Thorsteinson acknowledges that during a global health crisis, music is not considered essential, but it is still an outlet to give people hope.

“For us to be able to be that outlet, you know, if a nurse comes off a 14-, 18-, 20-hour shift and wants to sit down and throw the computer on, and listen to a show and that helps her out for 90 minutes of her life, that’s my job done,” he says.

For McKim, the concert is evidence of how important the arts are to her community.

“I know that especially during the pandemic, I think it’s become really clear the value of the arts,” McKim says. “People have been turning to Pinterest for craft ideas or do it yourself, or saying that music has gotten them through this. Those are all art-centered things. The arts are a huge release, it’s an escape, it’s therapeutic and that’s why it’s so important to continue to invest in arts programming.”

Meanwhile, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the band’s breakthrough album Curve, which introduced Doc Walker to a Canadian country audience.

Doc Walker has always been the kind of band that has done things its own way and that’s reflected on Curve, Thorsteinson says. The band could have played it safe by picking radio-friendly songs; instead the album features the aggressive rock-pop song The Show Is Free and “this wacky song” Rocket Girl that was different than anything else on the radio.

“We really wanted to have songs that showed the personality of the band,” says Thorsteinson, who founded Doc Walker with guitarist Wasyliw in the mid-’90s. “It was nice that we got to do a record that we wanted to do and resonated with the fans.

“Even now, I was getting my tire changed in Portage and talking to a guy, and his daughter’s name is Rocket. When she was born, he was on the way to the hospital and heard Rocket Girl for the first time. They didn’t have a name for their daughter and he ended up saying, ‘What about Rocket?’ It’s little things like that that stand the test of time.”

Tickets for Thursday’s show are $25 and are available on Prairie Fusion’s website, prairiefusion.ca. The show runs from 7 to 8 p.m.

joseph.bernacki@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @josephbernacki