Edmonton Sun - Thursday, September 13, 2001 Big Downer For Big Wreck By Steve Tilley EDMONTON -- Big Wreck guitarist Brian Doherty was raised in New York and has friends in the stricken city that he's been unable to contact since Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. So to say he has things on his mind other than his band's concert tonight at the Winspear Centre would be something of an understatement. Like millions of people across the world, the members of Big Wreck - Ian Thornley, David Henning, Forrest Williams and Doherty - are reeling from Tuesday's attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon. To say nothing of the fact the two hijacked airliners used in the horrific suicide assault on the twin towers, carrying 157 innocent people between them, originated from Boston - Big Wreck's home turf. "You've lived there, you've been to all these places, we have friends in all these places ... who knows what the other effects are going to be down the road from this?" Doherty said yesterday from an Edmonton hotel, just before the band headed to the Winspear Centre to rehearse for tonight's concert. "Me and Dave have family and friends in New York. There's still people we're trying to get in touch with and we haven't been able to, just because of all the phone traffic - you couldn't get through anywhere," he said. The band, best known for their hits The Oaf (My Luck Is Wasted), That Song and Blown Wide Open, arrived in Edmonton before Tuesday's events forced the closure of airports across North America. Like so many others, they woke up to the life-changing news reports on TV. "We were all just getting out of bed. Everybody was waking up, calling each other's rooms, just trying to figure out what the hell was going on," said Doherty. "It's just disgusting. They were making comparisons to Pearl Harbor, and we were all talking about how it's much more disgusting than that. All these people were innocent people on their way to work." There was even talk of calling off tonight's show, featuring Big Wreck along with guitar virtuoso Eric Johnson, Colin James, Tom Wilson, members of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and other guests. Doherty said the reasoning was it might not be appropriate in light of the massive tragedy south of the border. But concert promoters said the show will go on, even though some of the players may end up missing in action. Colin James and Eric Johnson are now in Edmonton, but Tom Wilson, percussion group Uzume Taiko and host Melissa DiMarco were yesterday waiting for air travel to resume so they could catch flights here. Maybe it's a good thing the concert will continue, as it could be something to help take people's minds off the horrors of recent days. And Doherty said the band's first rehearsal with the ESO on Tuesday went swimmingly. "Walking into the rehearsal room with the symphony orchestra and then rehearsing with them was just amazing," he said. "It was just such a totally different experience for us. It went well. It sounds really cool. "And then having Eric Johnson walk in later in the day ... he's my hero. Ian and I have been following him since we were in Berklee (College of Music in Boston), geeking out, trying to steal his licks." Big Wreck's success in their semi-adopted home of Canada has been solid, though the band is still looking for that elusive U.S. exposure - something made difficult, Doherty says, by the homogenizing of U.S. radio. "Every time we go into radio stations down there to do interviews, we look at their play lists and it's 15 or 20 bands. Seriously. And the band on the bottom of the list is selling five million records. How is someone like us supposed to compete with something like that? You can't." Ultimately, though, the band's thoughts today are with the people who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks. "I'd imagine it's going to make a lot of people feel very unsafe, feel very insecure," said Doherty. "It's a total cowardly act. I really don't know what to say." click here for the original article