Alvvays in Winnipeg

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Canadian indie-rock favorites Alvvays in Winnipeg are back on their latest tour, and local fans let them know that they don’t want to wait another five years until they return. Having previously played at the smaller Park Theatre, fans filled the 1800-seat Burton Cummings Theatre into the second balcony showing the band just how much they’re loved in Winnipeg.

Alvvays is on tour promoting their latest album Blue Rev, their third, and first in five years. They began writing the album back in 2017 immediately after the release of their second album Antisocialites. Despite numerous setbacks including the theft of their demos, a basement flood, and the Covid pandemic, the band was back in the studio in October 2021 to record the album.

The younger audience at the show was packed to the barricade as soon as they arrived, which was no doubt a pleasure for the opener Big Rig. Star-struck fans gripped their Alvvays merch ready for the records, posters, and t-shirts, to create long memories of the anticipated fantastic show.

The Show

And the band definitely did not disappoint. They hit the stage with the first single off Blue Rev, Pharmacist, and followed it with another Blue Rev track After the Earthquake. The audience sang along confidently, despite the tracks only being released in recent months. The 22-song set worked its way through the entire Blue Rev album, mixing in tracks from previous albums including favorites from both previous albums like Adult Diversion, Archie Marry Me, and Dreams Tonite. They closed out with a three-song encore that included Blue Rev tracks Velveteen and Lottery Noises.

It appears that the time they took for the album paid off as not only did local fans love the show and the new album, but the greater music community did as well. It was ranked 12th in Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Albums of 2022 and 1st in Exclaim!’s 50 Best Albums of 2022.

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