Lead vocalist Tony Dekker and the folk group Great Lake Swimmers perform a song which begins with the line, “Lost in the Lakes” in the above 3’47” video. High Fidelity Music Blog describes the song this way, “it’s not about someONE, it’s about sometTHING. In my opinion Dekker has written this song about Canada, maybe even more specifically Ontario.”
This iconic Ontario musical group played at Crocks in Thunder Bay on Wednesday, October 26th. The group played Sudbury a day previously and was headed to Winnipeg a day later. Dekker definitely knew how to push the right buttons with the crowd assembled at Crocks on Wednesday evening, starting out the session by saying, “the drive across the top of Lake Superior is the most beautiful drive in Canada.” That definitely got the wildly cheering audience on side.
“Those familiar with the decade-long output of Great Lake Swimmers will recognize the thematic threads of beauty in the natural world, environmental issues and explorations of close personal ties that hold us together.” That’s the way the trio’s website describes the group. Put in a word, their music is “folk”, although it goes far beyond this.
As High Fidelity notes, “Lead vocalist Tony Dekker does a brilliant job of personifying the environment which Canada is famous for. ‘I was lost in the lakes”, “The mountains said I could find you here/they whisper the snow and the leaves in my ear”, “I was moving across your frozen veneer.’
In addition to Dekker on lead vocals and guitar, Great Lake Swimmers consists of long time guitarist and banjo player Erik Arnesen, Miranda Mulholland on violin and backing vocals, Bret Higgins on upright bass and newcomer Joshua Van Tassel on drums. Only Arnesen and Higgins played during the set at Crocks.
Excellent Article about the Great Lake Swimmers in Thunder Bay’s Chronicle – Journal.
Check out this related blog on the Great Lake Swimmers which begins:
I’m not really interested in sports, and I am definitely not an athlete by any means. I do love swimming though. I’d swim anywhere; ocean, river, pool, but I especially like lakes. Having grown up in North Western Ontario I was surrounded by them. My hometown was situated around Lake Nipigon, the largest lake that lies entirely within the province of Ontario, and feeds into Lake Superior – the largest of the five Great Lakes. A fun little fact for those of you that may not know, but Lake Superior is actually the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. I’ll tell you another thing that I know from experience, not from a textbook. Lake Superior, even in the dead heat of summer, is always FREEZING! After a good twenty minutes in the drink you’ll be jumping out to warm up………
