Can-rock 90s: Nickelback – "Fly"
Celebrating the best(?) of 90s Cancon sanctioned modern rock.
Want someone to blame for Nickelback’s current dominance of modern rock radio? One of those fingers could be pointed right here I’m sorry to say. See, way back in 1995, Nickelback were just another grunge aping rock band kicking around Vancouver. But someone over at local radio station 99.3 “The Fox” (“The Fox Rocks!”) thought that their song “Fly” from demo ep Hesher deserved some radio play. I was 15 at the time, a fan of bands like Silverchair, Bush (Bush X in Canada at the time) and Seven Mary Three. So naturally I thought the song was awesome. Hey, it was the first local band I could champion. Being underage, the first time I saw them was a free in-store at Virgin Records and about 30 people showed up. They continued this trend, playing similar in-stores at Sam the Record Man and Future Shop. My constant appearance at these sparsely populated gigs coupled with the fact rhythm guitarist Ryan Peake used to baby sit my friend Tyler meant Chad Kroeger actually started to recognize me. By the time I saw them play a gig at the rec centre in Port Moody (the only time I ever paid to see them), they were selling VHS cassettes with this music video on it. So yeah, I was an early Nickelback supporter. What’s a guy to do?
Oh, back then Ryan Peake also used to sing when the band covered Soul Coughing‘s “Super Bon Bon.”
well it had to be said…those were some good times at the free in-store gigs. Who’d of thought they’d become so big and we’d still be so small?