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Canadian recording legends to rock Red Deer’s Westerner Days Friday

Streetheart, Headpins and Holly Wood and Toronto perform tonight
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The Headpins (promotional image).

Tunes from three Canadian bands that helped define the ’80s will rock the Centrium on Friday night during Westerner Days.

Streetheart, Headpins, and Holly Woods and Toronto will perform in a powerhouse triple-bill amid the psychedelic colours of Glow Night in the arena.

Streetheart, originally from Regina, but now based in Winnipeg, was a hit-making factory in the late-’70s. The group’s disco-hybrid cover version of the Rolling Stones’ Under My Thumb went gold in Canada in 1979.

Plaintive vocals by the late Kenny Shields also resonated with listeners in such songs as Look In Your Eyes, Action, Here Comes the Night, What Kind of Love is This, Tin Soldier, Snow White, Hollywood and others.

Since Shields died in 2017, Winnipeg native Paul McNair has been carrying on as lead vocalist with the band.

Streetheart received a Juno Award and was voted most popular Canadian act at the Peoples’ Choice Awards. In 2003, the band was inducted into the Western Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Headpins were initially formed in Vancouver in the late-1970s as a side project for a couple of members of Chilliwack, Ab Bryant and Brian MacLeod.

Darby Mills was brought in as lead vocalist, a duty that has since been passed to Katrina Lawrence.

The band released the hit singles Don’t It Make Ya Feel, Just One More Time — which spent nine week on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984 — and Feel It (Feel My Body).

Headpins continue to perform live with Bryant and Bernie Aubin from the classic ’80s lineup.

Toronto was formed in the late-1970s in its namesake city. The group is best known for the top-10 Canadian hit, Your Daddy Don’t Know, which also cracked the U.S. pop charts.

Among the band’s other hits are Start Tellin’ the Truth and Girls’ Night Out.

The band also wrote and performed the original version of What About Love — a song that would later become a top-10 single for the band Heart.

Toronto was nominated for a Juno in 1981. And three years later, vocalist Holly Woods was nominated for a Juno for female vocalist of the year.

The 8 p.m. blast-from-the-past rock show (doors open at 7 p.m.) is free with gate admission to the fair.



lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com

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