Toronto’s Weekend Warriors, who performed last Thursday at Wilf’s, came to party.
It was obvious, by the sheer volume of people present, that they have quite a fan base at Laurier.
“I have not seen it this busy on a non-Tuesday for a really long time,” said a patron on the number of people at Wilf’s waiting to see Weekend Warriors.
Furthermore, there was an impressive number of attendees decked out in artistically crafted homemade shirts with quotations such as “Devilish Brunette,” “Mr. Right Now,” and “This is my Weekend shirt” – all references to Weekend Warrior’s song lyrics or the band themselves.
Instead of having an opening band, Weekend Warrior’s Mike Gonek DJ-ed a short 20-minute set to warm up the crowd before the rest of the band, Brendan Beamish and Jermaine Hamilton, joined him on stage.
By the time they did, an enthusiastic crowd was gathered around the stage. Hamilton, whose shirt read, “Drink, Refill, Repeat” established this as that night’s theme, to which the crowd was easily agreeable.
After performing a couple of songs off their self-titled album, to which the audience was dancing and singing along, Beamish made an announcement.
“This is the last night we’ll be performing as Weekend Warriors,” he told the crowd. Likely due to legal reasons, the band is going to change their name, but wanted to perform their first time at Laurier as Weekend Warriors.
They resumed their set, playing a Weezer cover, a play on Micheal Jackson’s “Black or White”, a new song, as well as off their current album. A new song, which had yet to be built up and processed, was performed acoustically.
“We don’t normally do this,” said Beamish on performing acoustically. “But Laurier has shown us a lot love.”
In terms of Weekend Warrior’s style of music, they describe themselves and their sound as “a gumbo pie.”
“I’m from Louisiana,” said Hamilton in his amiable accent.
“And where I come from we have a thing called gumbo. You just take everything in your fridge and throw it in one big stew and you get the most amazing stew you could eat … that’s what our band is like.”
In this regard, Beamish added, “As we go we realize that we’re probably better off not being able to define what we’re doing because that means we’re probably doing something a little bit different.”
Before the end of their set, Weekend Warriors invited their fans up on stage. Everyone who joined was dancing, singing, and seemingly having the time of their lives.
The night ended with Gonek DJing and a dance party, as promised by Beamish.
In an interview with The Cord, Beamish was very appreciative of Laurier.
“I know this probably won’t all get printed,” he said of their interview, “But if you can print one thing, print ‘thank-you Laurier, and keep it up!”
