David Wilcox in action
It's amazing David Wilcox has never written a love song to the Kee to Bala. These two were made for each other.
Every summer, it seems, Wilcox, a Montreal native who turns 61 next month, brings his handful of hits - think Do the Bearcat and Riverboat Fantasy - to the Kee, an institution in Ontario's Muskoka region for cottagers who have been drinking all day and want to rock out all night.
The venue is a squat white building with a huge patio overlooking Bala Bay. People come by boat, by school bus and in cars. Almost all of them are wearing flip-flops. You're just as likely to bump into a college kid as you are a white-haired senior wobbling on his feet, beer in hand. It's the kind of crowd Wilcox and his brand of "dock rock" was made for. The only person who might rival Wilcox as king of "dock rock" and the Kee, in fact, is Kim Mitchell - who's playing there on Aug. 14.
"If you put a gun to my head and said what's your favourite place to play in the world, I would say the Kee to Bala," Wilcox told the crowd last Saturday night as they hooted and hollered.
Why would you need to put a gun to his head? Questions like that prove you're thinking too much. And when it comes to a concert like this, thinking is the last thing you should be doing. Here is the formula for this kind of summer entertainment: Turn off your brain and turn on the good times. The more than 900 people at the Kee on Saturday seemed to understand this perfectly.
When Wilcox started his set just after 11 p.m. with a rendition of Rock Me, a beach ball got tossed in the air and the large dance floor in front of the elevated stage was packed. I saw one guy in his 20s doing the robot. The robot! Couples were twirling one another around. Most other people did what I can only describe as a shimmy shimmy boogie, a completely irony-free dance move that involves bouncing from side to side like one of those little Hawaiian dolls people keep on their dashboards.
The next few songs, including Preachin' the Blues and My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble, kept the crowd riding high. But when he launched in to the opening notes of Do the Bearcat, everyone in the Kee went completely bananas. Wilcox, dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt, ate it up. His shaved noggin bounced around like a bobble-head doll. He played his slide guitar to squeeze out every bit of howling joy from the song's iconic riff.
"Put your hands on your hip and let your backbone slip," Wilcox sang. "Do the bearcat, ow!"
Oh, we did the bearcat all right. Never mind that no one really knows what the bearcat is. You just take another swig from your beer, bob your head, pull up your board shorts and do it.
This is the best part of mindless summer fun. You never have to worry if you look cool because everyone bought a ticket to ridiculousness the moment they walked up to the door.
Just how ridiculous? When Wilcox played Layin' Pipe, he asked the band to hit him one time, and they did. He asked them to hit him two times, and they did. He asked them to hit him three times, and they did. Then he asked them to hit him 37 times - and they did. With each bang of the drum and thwang of the bass guitar, the crowd danced so hard it's a wonder the floor wasn't totally awash in spilled beer.
And when Wilcox got back to the lyrics, everyone sang along. People who spend time in cottage country know the words to Wilcox's hits like they know sunburns and mosquito bites.
One guy I met, who drove up for the concert from Brampton with his wife, said he had seen Wilcox eight times and would never miss a show at the Kee. Another guy, who was wearing jeans and a jean jacket ("My girlfriend's kids call me Jean Jacket Joe," he told me) said he drove there from his place in Port Hope figuring it would be a great party for a perfect summer night. Both of them rocked out as hard as anyone in the room.
Just after 1 a.m., Wilcox ended the show with a pounding rendition of The Hypnotizin' Boogie.
The lights went out and the cottagers headed home, filled with an airy bliss.
Dave McGinn