Refusing to remain stuck in neutral, July Talk embrace drive-in concert experiment

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“We have no intention of just setting up in a parking lot and letting ’er rip,” July Talk singer-guitarist Peter Dreimanis says. “We’re interested in biting off as much as we can chew.”

Dreimanis is talking about July Talk’s concerts on Aug. 12 and 13 at The Stardust, a drive-in theatre near Newmarket, Ont., north of Toronto. With venues shuttered and festivals called off, concerts by the carload are trending in a live music industry devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keith Urban performed a secret gig at a Tennessee drive-in theatre for health care workers this spring. Small-town band Studio 720 planned to play on the roof of a Canadian Tire in Prince George, B.C., but moved to place with a bigger lot to accommodate more cars. The upcoming RBC Bluesfest in Ottawa has transitioned to bucket-seat shows too.

It seems the only band not catering to the dashboard crowd are the Texas rockers At the Drive-In, a group currently on hiatus.

There’s a lot of that going around – things on hold. With the live music industry tanking, real-time streaming was the first stop-gap response. Now with the warmer weather, engines are being revved for something more substantial.

Just because movies are better under the stars, as its promoters tell us, the same doesn’t necessarily hold true for rock ’n’ roll. It makes sense, in terms of keeping attendees physically distanced, but is drive-in music, with audience members bubbled in their automobiles and cut off from the band and the rest of crowd, the answer? After all, if necessity is the mother of invention, it’s also desperation’s cousin. If one wanted to listen to one’s radio in a parked car, well, that’s what traffic jams are for.

“We’re not going to pass up an opportunity just because it’s different,” July Talk co-lead singer Leah Fay told The Globe and Mail, speaking along with Dreimanis about the concerts and their new album, Pray For It. They take issue with the notion that a drive-in event is a diminished, last-resort version of a traditional show. “We’re not waiting for everything to be perfect,” Dreimanis says. “There’s a global pandemic and we’re putting a record out in the middle of it.”

Pray For It, July Talk’s third album, is a departure stylistically from its bluesier predecessors. The music is melodic, with a pop flow in place of the band’s signature flashy drama and light/dark dynamics. “It was a different approach for us,” Dreimanis says. “It’s our third album. If we don’t explore, if we don’t change now, we’re dead in the water.”

Produced by the Australian-Canadian Burke Reid (who has worked with the Drones and Courtney Barnett), the album was recorded and mixed at the Tragically Hip’s shoreline studio in Bath, Ont. The band intended to tour the record “for a million years” before the pandemic shut down any traditional plans.

On its last tour, July Talk played arenas in Canada and prestige rooms such as the Ryman Auditorium and the Hammerstein Ballroom south of the border. Now the band heads to a pasture in Newmarket.

What they’re doing with their drive-in shows is beyond cars, stage and amplified sound. Drawing on the nostalgia of al fresco film screenings, the show will entail the use of vintage intermission advertisements (singing hot dogs and such), with multiple cameras producing live images on three giant screens.

In describing July Talk, Dreimanis uses the phrase, “rock ‘n’ roll performance experiment,” which is what this show in particular sounds like. More all-ages immersive Nuit Blanche art than high-wattage arena-rock glam.

“The shows we normally do, which are loud and with drunk people, aren’t always a welcoming environment for everyone,” Fay says, “This is a family-friendly event.”

Certainly the novelty of drive-in concerts is appealing. And cabin-fevered music fans will take what they can get for now. Still, it remains to be seen how well parking-lot-palooza will go over in the long run.

On the Pray For It song Pretender, Dreimanis sings, “You got the room in yer hand, they never fully understand, all the power you found.” Can that power transmit from the stage to a car radio? Or, in the case of all the live-streamed shows we’ve endured the last few months, through a computer screen? Dreimanis has his answer:

“I have no interest in being the old curmudgeon. at the bar, saying that it’s not good enough. I think there’s more room for progress if we look at it with the glass half full.”

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