A documentary keeps popping up on TV here - Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine.

Triumph was one of Canada’s biggest rock acts in the ‘70s and ‘80s. They also did well in parts of the US, particularly Texas and California. They formed near Toronto and I’m pretty sure they played my high school circa 1976. I never followed them but, if you are a Canuck, you can’t help but know them well.

The documentary outlines their career but, while the documentary was being made, there’s an ongoing sub-plot about their fan club arranging a visit to their warehouse here, where they recorded a lot of albums and store all their cool stuff. Various fans from Canada, the US and South America have won a ticket to this one-day event and are interviewed about how much the band means to them and how excited they are to get together again and get a chance to peek behind the scenes. Having experienced similar thrills with many of you lot, it resonated pretty strongly with me.

The band gets together, reminisces, gets the warehouse all fancied up, and the day comes when the fans are let in. What the fans don’t know is that the band is there, hiding behind a scrim in a small auditorium, where they are eventually led to see ‘a filmed thank-you message.’ The film doesn’t last long, and the flash pots go off, the curtain drops and the band kicks in. The crowd loses its collective mind!

I relate to that joy, that shared experience, that camaraderie. Most of us would. Watching it, I was so damn happy for them - the fans and the band, who were clearly thrilled to play together again and get a chance to talk to their oldest, most devoted fans.

It isn’t gonna happen with our boys - we can dream - but they’ve more than delivered for us for decades. Catch the film if you can. If you don’t know Triumph, here are a few…

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(P.S. Mandatory Stones reference - in their earlier days, they were slated to play Massey Hall in Toronto, a 2800-seat heritage building. They were banned because all their pyro was predicted to burn the place to the ground so, being young and cocky, they phoned Michael Cohl, then head of Concert Productions International, and convinced him they could sell out Maple Leaf Gardens. And did.)

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Keep On Rolling

That reminds me of the story of the reunion performance of the original Alice Cooper band that was held in a record store.

It too, was kept a secret.

The fans that had gathered there had been told it was a signing event for a new book written by bassist Dennis Dunaway. What a great way to insure the audience consisted of real fans of the original group!

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I've watched this a few times on Crave tv, a pretty good documentary. I always wondered if bassist Mike Levine was the inspiration for Derek Smalls on Spinal Tap!
Rik Emmett is an excellent guitarist, I remember watching an interview with him on Much Music back in the mid 80s, perhaps with JD Roberts on the Pepsi Power Hour, and he was showing different guitarists styles. I remember being impressed when he showed how Yngwie Malmsteen plays.
Favourite Triumph song is Lay It On The Line.

So today I learnt what a scrim is.