Alan Doyle’s never far away from home, even when he’s on tour in the US, as he is right now:
For Alan Doyle, former front man of Great Big Sea, home isn’t just where the heart is, it’s where his muse is, too. Even the titles of his two autobiographies underscore just how important “home” is for Doyle: Where I Belong and, just released, A Newfoundlander in Canada: Always Going Somewhere, Always Coming Home.
His latest album, At the Warehouse, released in October, is no different. “Home” is in traditional Celtic, “Newfoundland-sounding songs” as Doyle describes them on his blog post from October 13, 2017.
It’s also in pieces like “Somewhere in a Song,” which he describes as “a tip of the hat to my Mom and Dad and how they managed to raise us in a house that in retrospect had very little modern finery but had, in abundance, so much more of life’s most important things,” and “Beautiful to Me,” an announcement that his second home, the stage, is open to all: “for anybody of any shape or size or colour or race or creed or gender identity or sexual preference. All you need is Love in your heart and my place is yours,” he writes.
Doyle “will always tell the story of where he’s from, his history, that part of Canada,” says At the Warehouse producer Bob Rock, who has also produced for Nelly Furtado, Metallica, Cher, Mötly Crüe, Bon Jovi, and Michael Bublé, to name a few. “And he spreads it around the world, and that’s a beautiful thing.”
Touring causes a bit of a tug-o’-war for Doyle, and he described it in his January 15th blog post as “the odd mix of excitement to hit the road and sadness about leaving those who love to have you around.”
He talks about those last few days, where he might take the dog out for a little longer, or lingering at his mother’s counter for an extra 10 or 15 minutes, “just to watch your parents putter around the house and ask one more time, ‘Where are you going this time?’ Trying to commit the sound of their in-person voices to memory as they just don’t quite sound the same on the phone.”
Perhaps that’s why he writes so much about home: It allows him to bring it along when he’s away.
Alan Doyle’s concerts are like the perfect day: you’re with the people you love being with, listening to music that takes you to the moon, and you get to disappear from the trials of everyday life for just a couple of hours so you can soak in the joy and elation that marks an Alan Doyle concert.
Get your tickets now and be prepared to “raise the roof” and “lower the floor” with nearly 2,000 other Doyle fans on Wednesday, February 21 @ 8PM.
