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Triumph lays it on the line
-- February 7, '08
Jan 21, 2008
Greg Quill
ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST
The Triumph shadow has hung for more than 20 years over Toronto guitarist Rik Emmett, but nothing – not the promise of money, nor the efforts of friends and advisers to engineer a reconciliation with his estranged bandmates, drummer Gil Moore and bassist Mike Levine – could have lured him back into the arena-rock vortex.
Until, that is, the recent cancer-related death of his younger brother, a longtime fan of the Toronto trio that broke out of the club scene in the mid-1970s and rose to international stardom through the 1980s before calling it quits.
Emmett, Moore and Levine have spent the subsequent two decades bickering and sniping at each other in public and lawyer's offices.
"Yeah, well ... life's too short, and I did make this promise to my brother before he died," Emmett said Friday from his Toronto home after the announcement that Triumph is one of the featured headliners in June at the four-day Sweden Rock Festival. Having been inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame last March, Emmett, Moore and Levine were approached by the festival to share its main stage with Judas Priest, Def Leppard, Blue Öyster Cult, Whitesnake and other top arena rock bands of the 1980s.
Their decision to reform had little to do with money and less with revisiting past glories, said Emmett, 54, the band's youngest member. He has built a respectable solo career as a jazz and rock guitarist since Triumph split. Levine and Moore quit playing altogether, the latter to establish the Metalworks recording complex in Mississauga.
"When there's a death in the family, you start pondering the meaning of life ... and it's not as if Triumph has ever gone away. It's been part of me since I was in my early 20s," says Emmett.
He also recalled sharing a bill with veteran hard rock act Nazareth recently and being moved by their camaraderie and shared loved of the music they've been playing since the early 1970s.
"They're old, grey-haired, hard-drinking Scottish geezers and they're living an adventure that may never end, eternal brothers in music. I was jealous. I wished I still had that."
In the 1980s Triumph released a string of gold and platinum albums (Progressions of Power, Allied Forces, Never Surrender, Thunder Seven) and several durable hits, including "Fight the Good Fight," "Magic Power" and "Lay It On The Line."
Even so, it's unlikely Triumph can pick up where it left off. The plan, Emmett said, is to perform once in Sweden, and maybe a couple of times in July at venues yet to be determined, then to spend a year gearing up for a major world tour beginning in the summer of 2009.
"Of course, there is a Spinal Tap element to all of this," Emmett adds. "We haven't even had a rehearsal yet.
"This is no middle-age adventure. This is our history, our lives, our work."
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Feb 27, '04 |
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Oct 5, '02 |
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Sep 18, '02 |
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Jun 14, '02 |
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Apr 4, '02 |
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Apr 2, '02 |
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Nov 9, '01 |
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Feb 23, '01 |
Rik Emmett's true Triumph |
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Feb 1, '01 |
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upcoming shows
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May 24, '08 - Denver, CO
May 30, '08 - Bracebridge, ON
June 7, '08 - Solvesborg, SE
June 14, '08 - Port Perry, ON
June 21, '08 - Trenton, ON
August 8, '08 - Huntsville, ON
August 9, '08 - Pembroke, ON
October 14, '08 - Prince Albert, SK
October 16, '08 - Grande Prairie, AB
October 17, '08 - Sherwood Park, AB
November 8, '08 - Elgin, IL
November 14, '08 - Cleveland, OH
November 15, '08 - Pittsburgh, PA
November 22, '08 - Philadelphia, PA
November 23, '08 - Annapolis, MD
May 9, '09 - Ottawa, ON
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