{"id":33476,"date":"2023-08-24T19:18:06","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T23:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=33476"},"modified":"2023-08-31T21:05:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T01:05:20","slug":"ribfest-gig-will-be-family-affair-for-headliners-dwayne-gretzky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ribfest-gig-will-be-family-affair-for-headliners-dwayne-gretzky\/","title":{"rendered":"Ribfest gig will be \u201cfamily affair\u201d for headliners Dwayne Gretzky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Machell Park is set to sizzle this weekend when Rifest arrives once again to reclaim its crown as the Aurora\u2019s tastiest event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set to run from August 25 \u2013 27, headlining the opening night will be popular Toronto-based band Dwayne Gretzky which, over the course of the last decade, has built a huge following with their interpretation of classic favourites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An expansive and diverse group of musicians, the group promises a high-energy show that will get crowds up on their feet through \u201cjoyous, dancy fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes we get a tiny bit silly, but on the most part it is heartfelt, sincere, joyful and we invite everyone on for the ride,\u201d says Dwayne Gretzky founding member Tyler Kyte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A native of the GTA, this Friday\u2019s concert will be something of a homecoming for Kyte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have family in Aurora, so I have been visiting [the community] my whole life and it will be great to play our first public show in Aurora \u2013 I have some nephews who are future musicians, so I am excited for them to see us on stage!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a band, Dwayne Gretzky has been on stage for more than 12 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They got their start as a disparate group of musician friends who just wanted to get together and play. They didn\u2019t have a particular vision for the band other than just getting together to jam to songs they liked \u2013 \u201cjust like when you\u2019re around a campfire and people just know the chorus of a song but not the whole thing \u2013 but it\u2019s more fun when someone knows the whole song,\u201d says Kyte with a laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe started learning all the tunes for fun with no vision, no long-term plans or anything and before we knew it, after about three years, we kind of had a catalogue of 30 songs that were pretty fun that we all connected with \u2013 anything from Elvis Costello to Bruce Springsteen, The Cars, Fleetwood Mac \u2013 and we just started booking shows for this band that didn\u2019t even have a name, a purpose or anything like that. But we connected with our audience in Toronto pretty quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe name Dwayne Gretzky just happened on stage one night. We were playing with no name and someone asked, \u2018Who are you?\u2019 Nick, who helps run the band, said, \u2018We\u2019re Dwayne Gretzky,\u2019 into the mic as a joke. I ended up seeing that clip on YouTube under the name \u2018Dwayne Gretzky\u2019 and thought, \u2018We should actually make a go of this and should start this band.\u2019 Somehow Dwayne kept going and we thought it would be a good opportunity for work for lots of musicians and everything just started organically. If you told me I would still be doing that today, I don\u2019t know if I would have believed you, but at this point we have exceeded our expectations so many times \u2013 it\u2019s a matter of let\u2019s see how long we can do this, how big we can go and make this show as dynamic and fun as possible. And we\u2019re grateful to have the opportunity as it\u2019s a pretty fun job!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an \u201corganically grown\u201d band, sometimes it is hard for members to pinpoint just what defines Dwayne Gretzky and, as Kyte explains, how it is defined is by the people who play in \u2013 and the talents they bring to the table for each gig, and sometimes each song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause we\u2019re a 10-piece band and have an even bigger community of musicians we\u2019re gigging with quite regularly, we\u2019re kind of a good audience just within ourselves as to what is going to work,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re able to gauge everyone\u2019s interest and excitement level at any given song. The first time we ever did the Horseshoe Tavern, I remember our manager was like, \u2018We should book the Horseshoe. I remember thinking that was too big. It was too big a room for us and it sold out. It sold out in advance. I couldn\u2019t believe it. We got on stage and everyone had this united energy and they were ready to dance, have fun and it felt like we were on to something special then and that spirit has just continued to grow since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re all together and at our best, we\u2019re all present at the same time and there\u2019s no feeling quite like that. It\u2019s hard enough to get a group of musicians together on the same page for anything, but when we\u2019re all together, connected and just present and in the moment, it\u2019s a really special, wonderful feeling and we share that with the audiences we\u2019re with, which is amazing. As long as we have that feeling, we\u2019re going to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a complete lineup of this weekend\u2019s Ribfest entertainment, including Saturday night\u2019s headliner, April Wine, visit aurora.ca\/ribfest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Machell Park is set to sizzle this weekend when Rifest arrives once again to reclaim its crown as the Aurora\u2019s tastiest event. Set to run from August 25 \u2013 27, headlining the opening night will be popular Toronto-based band Dwayne Gretzky which, over the course of the last decade, has built a huge following with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/2023-08-10-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8HW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 11:15:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}