Dean Brody and The Reklaws Open the Hometown Heroes Tour at RBC Amphitheatre

The drive into Toronto on September 24 was sunny, but the temperature dropped faster than I expected. It had been far too hot a few weeks earlier, so I was glad I packed a jacket, and by 10 p.m. it was about 10°C. There were cowboy hats all over the crowd and one guy in a full winter coat. The night was the official Toronto kickoff of the Hometown Heroes Tour, a cross-Canada run with Dean Brody and The Reklaws as co-headliners and Nate Haller opening. Roughly 4,000 fans packed RBC Amphitheatre with the lawns closed, and upgraded seats were being offered to people as they came through the gates. It was also my last show at the RBC this season.

The other photographers and I were backstage getting ready when we heard music coming from the stage and figured Nate Haller had started without us. We went out front and found a young singer none of us recognized, and he wasn’t on our list. It was Chase Varnes, a 15-year-old singer-songwriter from British Columbia who has been on America’s Got Talent and only put out his first single, “Ain’t Been There Yet,” this summer. We were told he had been added at the last minute. He played an acoustic set for the early crowd, and he later thanked the tour on Instagram for letting him open the first two shows, which included Fest2Fall in Cambridge the next night.

Nate Haller was next. Around the middle of his set he started throwing T-shirts into the crowd, and it looked like he wiped his face with them first before tossing them out. His set ran from “Backfire” and “Race to the Bottom” to “Somewhere to Drink” and “Ain’t Like Me,” with covers of blink-182’s “All the Small Things” and Djo’s “End of Beginning” mixed in, and he closed with “Lightning in a Bottle.” He told the crowd his new album, Can’t Stay Here, was coming out at midnight. It’s an 11-track record that includes “Backfire,” his duet with Tenille Townes. After his set, Haller came down into the pit and watched the show with friends and fans.

Then came the part that changed how I shot the night. Dean Brody and The Reklaws walked out together, each holding a tallboy of Bud Light, and played “Can’t Help Myself,” “Honky Tonkin’ About” and “Bush Party” as one group. Brody sang a Reklaws song and the Walkers sang two of his, which made it feel like one band more than two acts sharing a bill. That opening stretch was all we were allowed to shoot, so there was no three songs for the co-headliner followed by three for the headliner. I normally start with the singer and work through the band, but with everyone on stage at once I dropped that plan and stuck with Jenna and Stuart Walker and Dean.

By the time I got to my seat, everyone was already standing. Dean left the stage after those three songs, and The Reklaws took over with “Old Country Soul,” “Feels Like That” and “11 Beers.” They also played two unreleased songs, “Drunk Enough to Dance” and “Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” then “Wish You Were Beer” and “People Don’t Talk About.” A medley of covers followed: Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying,” Rascal Flatts’ “My Wish,” Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” and Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried.” They finished with “I Grew Up on a Farm,” “Never Drinking Again” and “Long Live the Night,” wrapping up around 9:40 p.m. Between “11 Beers,” “Wish You Were Beer,” “Never Drinking Again” and “Drunk Enough to Dance,” the set was one long round of drinking songs, and I lost count of how many turned into singalongs. Phone lights showed up across the crowd during one of the biggest.

Partway through their set, Stuart, in an AC/DC shirt, announced he needed a cold one, and a giant red Rek Beer bottle came out. It was a shirt cannon in disguise, and it fired merchandise into the crowd. AC/DC were supposed to play Rogers Stadium on September 16, but that show was canceled after a storm damaged the venue. Jenna got her own big reaction when she told the crowd she’d had a baby eight months ago and asked how she looked, and the fans cheered. Late in the set, the Walkers came down into the pit to fist bump fans. All four of The Reklaws’ Canada Country No. 1s, “Feels Like That,” “Can’t Help Myself,” “11 Beers” and “Honky Tonkin’ About,” were played over the night.

I first saw Jenna and Stuart in the summer of 2011, when they were both a lot younger, playing at the Saugeen Shores Southampton Tourist Camp. They’re from the Cambridge area, where I live. None of us there that night could have guessed where it was headed, and fifteen years later they were co-headlining a national tour.

Everyone sat down during the changeover, which went quickly. Two drum kits shared the stage, one for The Reklaws on the right and one for Brody on the left, with a short runway reaching toward the barricade. There was barely any room between the runway and the barricade for us while shooting, so it was a tight squeeze. Brody opened his solo set with “Bounty” and moved through “It’s Friday,” “Lightning Bug,” “Canadian Summer” and “Whiskey in a Teacup.” He then ran a medley of “Roll That Barrel Out,” “Undone,” “Love Would Be Enough” and “Dirt Roads Scholar,” which covered a lot of his catalogue in a few minutes. After that came “Little Yellow Blanket,” “I’d Go to Jail,” “Black Sheep,” “Time,” “Where’d You Learn How to Do That,” “Canadian Girls,” “Death of Me” and “Bring Down the House.” The phone lights came out again early in his set. At one point Dean introduced his trumpet player and said the guy had been waiting 20 years to play the RBC stage. Brody has 16 CCMA Awards and two JUNOs, and the crowd knew nearly everything he played.

The Reklaws came back for the encore, “Hometown Heroes” and then “Can’t Help Myself,” with the Walkers in white Blue Jays jerseys and Dean in a red one. “Hometown Heroes” is The Reklaws’ song featuring Dean Brody, released earlier this year, and it gave the tour its name. “Can’t Help Myself” is Brody’s song featuring The Reklaws from 2020, and it set a single-week airplay record at Canadian country radio when it came out. After a night of sharing the stage from the first song, closing with the two of them made sense. For most of the crowd, it was the first night of a tour that runs across Canada through November. For me, it was the last night at the RBC until next summer. I was told the renovations planned for the venue next year have been pushed back to after next season, so I’ll be back.

A huge thanks to Mahlet Sintayehu at Live Nation for the accreditation.

Dean Brody and The Reklaws

The Reklaws

Nate Haller

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Drew Osborne

I’m Drew, the founder and editor of Front of the Stage. I have a strong love for music and photography, which started at a very young age. There’s just something I love about experiencing live music and capturing memories that will last a lifetime, and that’s how Front of the Stage came to be.