An interesting thing happened just as Big Sugar were starting off their set on Friday at the Danforth Music Hall: the couple next to me got up and left. Not to worry, though – they came back just a couple of minutes later, at which point it all made sense. They had gone to the bar to get some drinks. Fair enough. Gotta get stocked up on supplies before you settle in to watch the show, after all.
Speaking of alcoholic beverages, earlier that evening, while riding the subway, I spotted a long-haired, moustachioed dude wearing a trucker hat which read, “Daddy Needs a Beer,” and got a bit excited when I thought he was actually drinking a beer. Turns out it was just a cider. Fucking poser. But I digress. Back to Big Sugar.
Taking to the stage to the strains of the Get Smart theme song, the Toronto blues-rockers kicked things off with frontman Gordie Johnson shouting out a greeting to “Toronto and surrounding cities” before launching into “Diggin’ a Hole,” the lead track off 1996’s Hemi-Vision. They would go on to play Hemi-Vision in its entirety in honour of the album’s 30th anniversary, including tracks that Johnson admitted they never played back in the day.
What I’d almost forgotten about Big Sugar was just how deeply dub reggae runs through the band’s DNA. But that came rushing back on Friday night as they delved into a few dubby passages during their set. Those sweet, echo-drenched breakdowns and rubbery bass lines gave the set a laid-back, hypnotic pulse as the band switched back and forth effortlessly between the dubby and the heavy, a reminder that Big Sugar were never just a straight-ahead blues-rock band.
And though the current version of Big Sugar is not the same lineup that recorded Hemi-Vision back in the ’90s (Johnson is the sole remaining member from that era), they absolutely did it justice, with the heavy riffage of deeper cuts like “La Stralla” and “Empty Head” standing out as surprising highlights. Armed with his trademark double-necked guitar for much of the set, Johnson sounded great and he and his bandmates seemed to really be enjoying themselves as they dipped into their back catalogue.
It wasn’t all about Hemi-Vison though, with the band making sure to play hits like “Better Get Used to It” and Turn the Lights On” as well. For the later number, they were joined during the encore by openers Wide Mouth Mason, as well as Friendlyness of local roots reggae outfit The Human Rights. During that song, both Johnson and Friendlyness gave a shout-out to late Big Sugar bassist Gary Lowe, paying tribute to a man who played an important role in the band’s history.
Speaking of history, Wide Mouth Mason gave the crowd a bit of a history lesson during their opening set. At one point, the band shared a story about being the “opening, opening, opening” act for Big Sugar back in 1996 in Saskatoon – a gig that ultimately led to them touring together in those early years. As they wrapped up their set, they told the crowd, “We’re gonna leave you with the first song off our first record, which was also a Big Shiny tune,” a nod to their appearance on those MuchMusic Big Shiny Tunes compilations that seemed so ubiquitous back in the day.
And though I don’t recall Big Sugar ever making an appearance on Big Shiny Tunes, the band proved on Friday night that three decades on, Hemi-Vision sounds pretty big and shiny in its own right.
