Mahoney performs at Earls on July 14. Live music is back in the city and musicians and performers are excited to see crowds again. (Photo Courtesy Chris Brown)

By Chris Brown

Nothing like a live crowd

A passion to play: renewed excitement for local bands with the return live music

Jul 28, 2021 | 4:54 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Instead of being raised, voices were silenced. Instead of being shredded the guitars were quiet.

The clapping and cheering of an enthusiastic crowd is music to the ears of anyone who performs live.

It’s a sound performers and musicians didn’t hear for about 15 months during the COVID-19 pandemic with virtual performances their only avenue for shows.

For years Mahoney has been one of the city’s busiest and most popular acts. Trent Roset says without the stage he lost his passion

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“It’s like having your you know your entire passion pulled from under your feet right,” he says. “Like playing your instrument is one thing but being able to perform and entertain, that takes the musicianship to a new level.”

Roset says Mahoney did livestreams but with only a camera in front of them it was hard to muster the energy.

“You’re smiling, you’re laughing, you’re looking at non-existent people who are out there. And then we get behind an audience again and all of sudden it’s easy again,” he says. “It’s smooth because the energy is a tangible exchange between us and the audience. Not everyone’s watching or listening all the time but there’s always that connection and it just helps us to feel that, you know that excitement at the show.”

Roset says fans were quick to come back out to support Mahoney.

He says they seem “a little bigger, a little happier, a little more excited that we’re all together again.”

When the first shutdowns happened last March, Kelsey Porter was playing with her sister MacKenzie and supporting Brad Paisley on his Western Canada tour dates.

Kelsey says it was a complete 180 for her to go from playing four or five nights a week for about 10 years to almost nothing for more than a year.

She often plays with Daniel Hooft as Taking August and says there’s nothing like a live crowd.

“We did some stuff online during the last year. It was nice to be able to play for people, you knew they were listening but it’s nothing like having people right there,” Porter says. “You can feed off their energy, they’re feeding off you and it’s a real connection you can make with your audience.”

Porter says returning to playing live for people was emotional and surreal.

“I remember even jamming when we were allowed to start practicing again even that seemed just, like the best night of my life,” she says.

Roset says that for a long time Mahoney was their only source of income. These days they are both generating other incomes but it still took its toll.

There’s a flip side to not having shows though.

“There’s more time at home with the family. We were gone every weekend for 20 years. Now it’s time to hang out with the family, he says.

But the stage is where they want to be, Roset says.

“We are on cloud nine, man. It is just amazing to be playing again. The connection like I said between me and Ry-Guy is so much fun.”

“And then getting in front of people again is such a blast and then being able to generate a living and provide for our families doing what we love and what we’re good at, that fishes us right there, that’s much better,” he says while tapping his heart.

Mahoney has regular shows at Earls on Wednesdays and the Mezz on Thursdays. Check the Facebook pages of Mahoney and Taking August for more upcoming shows.