Tri-Continental make a long awaited return to Lethbridge , when they play the Geomatic Attic, Sunday, March 4.
The trio includes band members from all over Canada, who are bring different musical styles and influences to the table.
Lester Quitzau calls Pender Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island home, Madagascar Slim moved from Toronto to a hamlet just outside of Ottawa and Bill Bourne calls Edmonton home.
“When the time is right it’s right,” rumbled Quitzau, packing his bags for Edmonton where he will meet with his bandmates plus drummer Michael Treadway to rehearse and begin the tour.
“It’s been at least eight or 10 years since we were in Lethbridge,” said Quitzau, noting they took an extended hiatus to focus on their solo careers before reuniting in October 2016. It has been about as long since Quitzau played Lethbridge on his own as well.
“I think I played the Lethbridge Folk Club,” he recalled.
He is excited to play with Tri-Continental again.
“We’ve got a lot of new tunes to play and some older ones as well and after the tour we‘re going to record a new CD in Edmonton, he said adding they are touring Europe after that and returning for festival season.
“ We’re all busy with our solo careers, but I think we’ll be focusing on Tri-Continental for the next little while because we have bookings into 2019. Festival organizers are excited about it and I think our fans are. I know we are,” he said.
“We’re playing with a drummer which is exciting. It’s Michael ‘Barefoot” Treadway, because he plays barefoot,” he enthused “adding he has been playing plenty of duo shows with with Treadway.
“ I’ve been playing a lot of duo shows, with Michael mostly. There’s a lot of guitar/ drums, rock duos like the White Stripes and Black Keys. it’s great you can jam. You can just go and not worry about calling out chords,” he said.
He is also excited about the new music.
“Slim’s got a lot of Malagasy songs. Bill’s got new songs we’ve only heard little bits of. And I’ve got new songs. I went down the rabbit hole on a lyric search and found a Buddhist poet called Cold Mountain. Beat poets in the ’60s mentioned him. He has a poem he wrote 300-400 years ago that I put music to,” he said. He doesn’t know what the new songs will sound like.
“We’ll get together and rehearse, then we‘ll see,” he said, adding he doesn’t feel any pressure being back together after a long hiatus.
“We’ve been doing a lot of playing separately. It’s different every time anyway. After seven years were all different people. We’ve evolved,” he said.
“ It’s like playing a folk festival workshop. The three of us are playing songs and we pass the ball around and play on each other’s songs. It’s three guys with guitars and drums and percussion now,” he said.
“It’s a real cross-section of the world. Slim plays African music, then there‘s folk and blues music and some Celtic music and there’s a lot of slide guitar,” he described.
“But I can’t tell you what the show will be like, because even we don’t know,” he said.
Tri-Continental play the Geomatic Attic, Sunday, March 4 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $42.50 and $45.50 at the door.
