After Celine Dion and Paul McCartney, it’s now Nickelback’s turn to use the Videotron Center for pre-tour rehearsals.
For the past two days, the foursome have been crafting the Get Rollin’ touring show, which premieres in Quebec City next Monday and at the Bell Center in Montreal two days later.
According to Chad Kroeger, whom Le Journal met with colleague Ryan Peake at the Videotron Center on Wednesday, nothing will be left to chance in these days of preparations as long as they prevent members of the Canadian group from enjoying the capital’s charms.
“We’re playing every song, every lighting and pyrotechnics, everything that’s on the screen until the wee hours of the morning. All. We make sure every moment has the greatest possible impact.”
“It’s a lot of work,” adds the singer, admitting that the band members have to oversee everything.
“If something doesn’t go well or we don’t like it, it’s our fault because we didn’t invest enough time.”
Return of pyrotechnics
For the first time in ten years, pyrotechnics will be used at a Nickelback concert.
You had to see the amazed faces of Kroeger and Ryan Peake when tests interrupted our interview.
“We never tire,” said Peake, watching the jets of flame from the crates.
Why did you give them up then?
“It had become our trademark, but we used it so much that we became a pyro group. […] We got to a point where we wanted people to come for the songs. Because they are good,” say the musicians.
Quebec wasn’t easy
Despite the gruesome jokes that arose, Nickelback and his 50 million album sales shaped the country’s music history. They were even inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in March.
What are you most proud of? Their durability, says Ryan Peake.
“And transporting our music to as many places in the world as possible,” he adds. Come to Quebec. It wasn’t easy for us to assert ourselves in Quebec. Quebec and Montreal, it was difficult.
Fires that worry
The residents of western Canada, the Nickelback boys, are obviously keeping a close eye on the situation with the wildfires raging from one end of the country to the other.
“My cousin Chris had to be evacuated from Grande Prairie. He showed me pictures of the sky above his house and I told him to put whatever he wanted in a truck and drive to Edmonton. I asked him to call me when he got there,” says Chad Kroeger.
“You tell yourself that we are in 2023, it can’t happen and it will happen. I live in Abbotsford, forty minutes from Vancouver, and every summer, as soon as the wind shifts and the sky fills with smoke, we get warned on TV not to go out. It’s like this every summer. This is the new reality.”