Now and for the rest of the year, at the very least, only audiences in Canada will see a retro musical revue produced by Surrey-based Simply The Best Talent.
Steve Marshall, creator and producer of Relive The Music: '50s & '60s, says it's too risky to tour the U.S. right now, with reports of professional musicians being told to leave the country under President Donald Trump's totalitarian rule.
"We'll stick with only Canadian shows again this year," Marshall said of the tribute concert, on a Lower Mainland tour April 1-7.
"I saw that an old punk band from the U.K. went to the States to play at a festival, and two of them got turned away, sent back, because apparently now if they look on your phone and they see you make any comment against Trump, you're just done," Marshall said.
"It was tough enough before Trump," he added. "You book shows, you put a down-payment and you have money in for, you know, 20 or 30 shows, and all of a sudden something happens, it's non-refundable. Now with this going on, it's just crazy."
This week, includes shows at Abbotsford Arts Centre (April 1), North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre (April 2), (April 4), Massey Theatre in New Westminster (April 5), Chilliwack Cultural Centre (April 6) and the ACT theatre in Maple Ridge (April 7).
Pre-pandemic, Marshall launched Relive The Music with the musical talents of his wife, award-winning Tina Turner tribute singer Luisa Marshall, and several family members including two kids and a sister-in-law. Concert dates are posted on .
"This show was in my brain for 25 years but I kept putting it off," Marshall noted. "We've gone across most of Canada three times now, all the way to Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. After this we're gonna be doing a '60s/'70s show, bring it up a decade, probably in the fall. We'll get this one done and then soup it up a bit. We could probably do a whole night of just '70s songs, with so many good ones from that decade."
The show brings "music history, trivia and memories" to the stage with video and 13 performers, including Marshall on drums. They perform a little bit of everything from the two decades when rock 'n' roll was born and became popular.
"The concept that I wanted was with trivia," Marshall said, "so before every song, or group of songs, we have a voice-over guy who says, you know, 'In 1964, the Beatles backed up this next artist, who forgot his prescription glasses on the airplane, so he had to wear prescription sunglasses, and he was forever known for that.' Then the audience gets about four seconds to scream out the answer before the song starts, dut dut dut dut dut (mimics the guitar intro of 'Oh, Pretty Woman'). It's Roy Orbison, right.
"That's the stuff people learn," he added. "We have a meet-and-greet after the shows and people always tell us they learn so much about the songs they grew up with. People really get into it, screaming out the songs. It's really interactive that way.鈥� I'm 69, so I grew up in that Baby Boomer world, listening and playing all that stuff."
One part of the Relive The Music show sounds kinda hilarious.
"The Beatles come out and they disappear, then the Pointer Sisters sing and then disappear, then the Elvis Fighters come out and, you know, it's costumes flying left and right."
Wait, the Elvis Fighters?
"There's an Elvis comedy bit where they break into the building," Marshall revealed with a laugh. "They're in a competition, the song starts and one of them comes out, then another who kind of shoves him aside and sings, and so that one is mad and marching around the stage, and then a third one comes out. He's the best one of the bunch, and then the other two are jealous and pouting, so it's like a comedy, you know."
