Big Wreck bringing big rock to Nickel City

Sudbury's New Music Fest will be the last leg of a summer tour for Big Wreck.

The band has been bouncing around Ontario for much of the summer, as well as putting on a performance at the Calgary Stampede in July.

New Music Fest comes to town on Aug. 28 and 29 and Big Wreck will headline Day Two – the more rock-centric lineup for the two-day festival.

Bands including Sea Perry, Hello Holiday, Echoes the Lion, and Moist will also be the playbill for Saturday before Big Wreck take the stage to close out the festival.

Friday at New Music Fest has more of a country music flavour with performances by Autumn Hill, River Town Saints, Kira Isabella and Tim Hicks.

With the array of bands that are present at music festivals such as this, Big Wreck lead singer and guitar player Ian Thornley says that building a set list takes on a different challenge than when touring an album.

“When you're releasing an album you can kind of change your set list around and you take your audience to different places,” said Thornley. “When you're playing festivals though, not everybody is necessarily there to see you so you try to stick to playing the hits to please everyone as much as you can.”

Big Wreck's last album “Ghosts” was released on June 10, 2014, and since that time the band's touring schedule has been a bit of a mish mash, Thornley said.

“When we're playing in Canada, we've usually got downtime during the week then doing festivals on weekends, as opposed to getting on a bus and playing night after night, so it can be hard to get a rhythm going,” said Thornley. “When you're touring consistently the shows seem to get better and better as you go along.”

Thornley, who hails from Toronto, says that playing in his home province on the festival circuit can be a double-edged sword, and that while he feels the performances are stronger and tighter when playing more frequently, he also enjoys the comforts of home.

“It's nice to be close to my kid and being able to visit her whenever I can as opposed to being on the road when I can't do that,” said Thornley. “It's also nice to get into a rhythm with shows and with the band. When you're touring consistently, there's something that happens between the musicians that's hard to get.”

The band is returning to Sudbury's New Music Fest, this time under more a more pre-planned circumstance. In 2014 Big Wreck was called upon as a last minute replacement for Theory of Deadman. The band also played Sudbury when they opened for Motley Crue at Sudbury Arena in 2013.

Thornley says he would love to play more shows in cities like Sudbury, but changes in the music industry have made planning tours much more difficult, and getting shows in smaller cities between major stops comes with a significant number of hoops to jump through.

“There's so many spots in between major cities; Thunder Bay would be in there, Sault Ste. Marie, and there's just all these spots and you want to hit them all, but there's all these weird things involved with touring nowadays that didn't exist not that long ago,” said Thornley.

One such hurdle is a radius clause, where performers can not host a show within a certain radius of a previous performance within a specific time frame before or after the show.

Big Wreck has been around for more than two decades now, having formed in 1994, and Thornley has seen transitions in the music industry and how it has affected touring.

“With the record sales side of the business it's created a role reversal, from releasing an album then going on tour to promote the album, now you're releasing an album to promote a tour because that's the only way to generate any income,” said Thornley.

“So with this radius clause, if I play here on Tuesday night, I can't play within a however many mile radius of that venue for 30 days or 60 days and it makes things really difficult. I get it because they want to have the show be a sell out and they want to make as much money as they can, but it's really hard to do, it's hard to book an entire tour.”

Thankfully for Sudburians, Big Wreck will be able to make a stop in town for a night before they head home in preparation for an October tour in Germany. Thornley says the band may do a few one-off shows before heading out, but New Music Fest is their last big stop before they head overseas.

For more on Big Wreck check out their website: www.bigwreckmusic.com

To purchase tickets and for more on New Music Fest visit: www.newmusicfest.ca