ENTERTAINMENT
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FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014
It’s a Wild Life on the road VANCOUVER-BASED POP GROUP HEDLEY BRINGS CANADIAN TOUR TO CENTRIUM ON SUNDAY BY LANA MICHELIN ADVOCATE STAFF Hedley’s bassist Tommy Mac is still riding an adrenaline high in the wake of performing for 10,000 screaming, cellphone-waving fans in Toronto. “It was incredible. We played the biggest show of our lives,” Mac told the Advocate the day after the big event at the Air Canada Centre. The Vancouver-based pop group has appeared before larger crowds at outdoor festivals, but never as a headliner. And Mac considers the March 27 Toronto concert “amazing” because it proves Hedley can draw enough fans to fill a large arena. “I found myself looking at all the cellphones and lights out in the audience and I almost forgot myself — I forgot I was on stage,” said the chuckling musician, who hits Red Deer’s Centrium on Sunday with the rest of Hedley. The Central Alberta gig will be the third last show of the lengthy Canadian Wild Life tour. Hedley’s 35-date jaunt started in B.C. on Valentine’s Day, went as east as far as St. John’s, Nfld., and will finally wrap on April 10 in Victoria. But rather than slowing down for this last westward stretch, the group is “amping up” with opening acts rappers Classified and Mike Boyd, and the duo USS. Mac comes across as keen about playing in Red Deer as someone who hasn’t been on constant tour for nearly two months. He said he’s been performing for nine years with lead singer Jacob Hoggard, guitarist David Rosin and drummer Christian Crippin and “it never gets old . . . . “I tell everybody I’m the luckiest man in the world and if I ever complain about anything, I should get struck by lightning!” His band has been regularly spotlighted over the last few years — what with entertaining at the last Grey Cup half-time show, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and near annual Juno Awards ceremonies. It sometimes seems like the ubiquitous Hedley has become Canada’s house band. But Mac hesitates to put his pop group into the same iconic category as someone like Celine Dion. “She’s Canada’s songbird . . . I don’t know if I’d want to be the one saying that (about Hedley) . . . . But I would love it if other people said it!” The 36-year-old father of a two-year-old son feels it’s an honour to take part in a national event like the Grey Cup, which is fervently watched by other Canadians and tends to brings more fans into the fold. Lately, the band’s popularity has been exploding with the mega-hit Anything. The single from the lat-
Contributed photo
Hedley’s performance at the Centrium on Sunday, 7 p.m., will be the third last show of the lengthy Canadian Wild Life tour.
HEDLEY Who: Canadian pop/rock band Hedley, with special guests Classified, Mike Boyd and USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker). When: 7 p.m., Sunday, April 6. Where: Red Deer’s Centrium. Tickets: $35 to $80 from Ticketmaster. est Wild Life CD has become Hedley’s fastest selling to date. The dance-able tune about never letting doubters bring you down, comes with an eye-popping video, complete with content warning about nudity. It appears to make fun of the excesses of celebrity culture — including send-ups of twerking star Miley Cyrus. Mac admitted he has mixed feelings about the video (which has raised some general eyebrows but no comment from Cyrus herself). He feels the more risque aspects might be objectionable, but on the other hand, the footage shows another facet of the band. In the end, it got people talking — even some music industry people in the U.S., said Mac, who isn’t sure whether Wild Life could become Hedley’s breakthrough record south of the border, where it was just released. Many popular Canadian bands, including The Tragically Hip, have tried to make a major dent in the American market and failed.
It’s really hard to cross over, admitted Mac. “But it’s the brass ring for us, so it’s what we always try to do . . . .” Meanwhile, Hedley is gathering fans in Australia, New Zealand, England, Belgium and Germany, where Mac was born. The former Canadian Forces “army brat” (named Thomas MacDonald) said he’s looking forward to the next European tour, since he’s always thrilled to return to places he remembers from his youth. “It’s cool to go back and see where I lived and the schools I used to go to . . . .” While he gravitated towards playing with metal bands when he was younger, Mac now feels his “evolution” towards pop fits better with his populist aims: “I was always more about putting people in seats and getting them to buy albums.” Hedley came into being when a group that Mac was formerly with lost its vocalist. Someone suggested taking on Hoggard, but Mac remembers being completely dismissive of the former Canadian Idol contestant before meeting him. “I didn’t believe in that whole factory process . . . .” But the two hit it off soon after meeting and Hoggard’s musical talents were undeniable, said Mac. “Jake has such a raw talent. ... He started to really learn how to write and arrange songs.” He believes what makes the group so much fun to watch is that the musicians are clearly having a good time together on stage. “We all make each other crack up every day.” lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
Captain America meets modern-day paranoia BLOCKBUSTER TWEAKS THE BRAIN WHILE DAZZLING THE EYE Captain America: The Winter Soldier Three stars (out of four) Rated: PG In the new Captain America sequel, our unthawed avenger visits the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., to see an exhibit devoted to his Second World War exploits. It’s the only thing in the film that sniffs of embalming fluid. Marvel’s corniest and most archaic superhero otherwise gets a thorough upgrade this time out, in thinking if not in costume, learning through multiple revelations that trust is more elusive than peace. Subtitled The Winter Soldier, a nod to the Captain’s mysterious new cold-blooded nemesis, the movie comes PETER wrapped not only in the Stars HOWELL and Stripes but also Watergate-meets-9/11 paranoia from influences like The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, the latter especially so thanks to the forceful and nuanced presence of Robert Redford. It’s gung-ho vs. shadow as Captain America gets wise in a hurry and while being pursued. The contrast makes for the best kind of blockbuster comicbook movie, tweaking the brain while dazzling the eye. When we first rejoin Cap (Chris Evans), aka Steve Rogers, he’s still coming to grips with the 21st century. Having fended off the Nazi-allied HYDRA criminal organization in origin film Captain America: The First Avenger, he’s now engaged in more current heroism. Things like stopping pirates in the Indian Ocean, aided by his sexy (and sneaky) fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), aka Black Widow of The Avengers alternate universe. Cap is as valorous as ever, if also a little too virginal. He brushes off dating advice from Natasha, and admits to his new military pal Sam (Anthony Mackie) that he still needs to bone up on such popcult totems as the music of Nirvana and Marvin Gaye and such movies as Rocky.
MOVIES
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Cap (Chris Evans), aka Steve Rogers, is still coming to grips with the 21st century in the sequel ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier.’
More vexing to this Greatest Generation do-gooder are the flexible ethics of S.H.I.E.L.D. The agency’s high-priority Project Insight is a gussied-up drone missile program devised to take out evildoers before they do evil (shades of Minority Report). It finds targets by violating civil liberties on a global scale — much like what America’s National Security Agency wiretappers are actually doing — and this doesn’t sit well with the righteous Captain. “This isn’t freedom,” he tells S.H.I.E.L.D. boss Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). “This is fear.” Cap has a point, one even the ferocious Fury can see. But when Fury seeks permission from his government overseer (Redford) to hit the pause button on Project Insight, the good guys barely have a chance to move before the bad guys storm in — including a one-man wrecking crew with face mask and mechanical arm known as the Winter Soldier. And who really are the bad guys this time? That’s the beauty of the script by returning writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, brought to the screen with malevolent gusto by sibling directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, who were last seen helming considerably tamer material with You, Me and Dupree. While the Russos prove themselves more than capable at handling the film’s many muscular set pieces — an elevator ambush scene is a highlight — they’re also dab hands at building a mood of unease and distrust. It gets almost supernaturally spooky at times — is that echoes of the Twin Peaks theme in Henry Jackman’s score? — and cinematographer Trent Opaloch imparts a similar sense of totalitarian menace he also brought to the compromised cityscapes of Elysium and District 9. And while things get a little too complicated midway through, what keeps us grounded and interested is the continuing education of Captain America, whom Evans impressively frees from his comic book origins. “It’s kind of hard to trust somebody when you don’t know who that somebody really is,” he confides to an ally. Cap is learning the hard way, much like the superpower he symbolizes, that an imperfect modern world doesn’t offer perfectly moral choices to complex problems. Peter Howell is a syndicated Toronto Star movie critic.