Rest in peace, dear drummer
The Barrymores plan a final, 10-band salute to the late Devin Mitchell
Don Beat

“We’ve never played a gig with 10 bands before, or at a venue this big before,” Barrymores bassist Ian Lodewyks says of his band’s final gig.

“We’re trying to do everything that we can to promote it,” says the man who also serves as vocalist/guitarist in SubCity Dwellers. “It’s our last show, and it’s the craziest thing because we’ve been playing for six years. How do you put an end to that?”

The 10-act super show is also a tribute to Lodewyks’ best friend — Barrymore’s drummer Devin Mitchell — who was tragically killed in a snowmobile accident on March 3.

Mitchell was a key component of the evolving Barrymores, a group that matured from a hack-about-but-energetic emerging ska act to become a rock band of star-shiny professionalism, both live and on record.

The Barrymores’ recently released album, New Invasion, is both an indie- and corporate-radio chart-climber with great legs, and it’s excited music fans and critics all across Canada.

Who knows what heights The Barrymores could have attained or how many more great albums the band had in it?

Rally the music community

“It’s a tragedy. We did an album that we are all so proud of, and then… this had to happen to Devin,” Lodewyks says.

“Devin and a couple of good friends were out snowmobiling,” says Barrymores/SubCity Dwellers sax player Darryl Reilly (ex-The Afterbeat). “They were wearing helmets, and Devin was very experienced with snowmobiles. He’s been snowmobiling since he was a kid, but Manitoba Hydro has this wooded area that they don’t want people to log, and they have this gate that’s locked right across the road. He died riding a snowmobile on March 3.”

Reilly and Lodewyks have been working hard to promote The Last Barrymores Show — A Tribute to Devin Mitchell. They put the word out to their friends, and Lodewyks says the response was so great that some performers had to be turned away.

“There’s a lot of unity in the Winnipeg music scene with all the bands. People recognize this,” Lodewyks says. “A lot of people are shocked by this accident. We wanted to do this tribute to Devin while it was still pending. We’re saying goodbye to our friend and having some closure to something that’s still open. We didn’t want to continue The Barrymores without him.”

One last shaker

The final Barrymores show features a huge lineup of local bands including Fabulous Kildonans, The Knockarounds, The Crackdown, Bacteria Buffet Records co-operator Matt Henderson (from JFK & RWPO), Greg (Milka) Crowe, Devin’s singing sister Laura Mitchell, his guitarist father Colin Mitchell, Nathan, SubCity Dwellers, The Farrell Bros. and, finally, The Barrymores with drummer Steve Hallick. Devin’s father will play kit, too.

“We always had an understanding that if one of us ever left the band we’d stop,” Lodewyks says as we both ponder the circumstances of Rasputin and the Russian empress in a 1932 flick starring — coincidence? — John and Ethel Barrymore. “It’s strange to be doing it now without Devin, especially since I was in so many bands with him. The first one was Poindexter when we were 12. Then we were in a pop-punk band called Offset when we were 13 until we were 16, from 1998 to 2000.”

Lodewyks continues: “We made our first recording together, and we played our first gig with Offset. After that we were in an emo band in the vein of Moneen and DBS called Carpe Diem. Then we were in The Barrymores, which was more of a positive spin in the right direction — a band that took up a third of our lives.”

Too soon the end

“It was just one of those bands that I never thought would break up,” Reilly says. “It’s pretty bizarre that it’s going to be over after this gig.

“A year ago I was at a point where I was done with school, so I joined The Barrymores because Ian and Devin asked me to. Then we recorded New Invasion. It was totally the album that Devin wanted to record. It was a perfect transition musically from the ska crap that The Barrymores used to play. I think it’s the perfect rock ’n’ roll album. I really connected with Devin,” Reilly says.

Reilly and Mitchell lived together and jammed in their basement whenever they could, which was basically all the time.

“We were pretty tight,” Reilly continues. “Playing music, playing with the band, going on tour — he was also the drummer in SubCity on our recent tour in February. That was one of the best weeks of my life, and I think Devin was playing the best drums he ever played in his life, a week before the accident. He really went out when he was on top of his game.”

“He was always getting better each time he played,” Barrymores/SubCity trombonist Rob Goodman says of Mitchell. “This recent SubCity tour that he did before he passed, Devin had to learn 35 songs in two months. He made a few mistakes the first night. After that he was just fantastic.”

Goodman says he and the rest of The Barrymores — including vocalist Jolene Norton and rough-house guitarist Dan Ransom (also in The Crackdown and The Knockarounds) — all agree that Mitchell was an uncanny force of nature, a juggernaut player with a heart of gold.

Chewing gum, string, a drumstick

— and it’s fixed

Mitchell was one of those Mr. Fix-It types, too, a bit of a rarity among the musically talented. His band friends gave him the nickname MacGyver because of his endless ability to make anything broken work.

“He’d give ’er every night,” Goodman continues. “And if something broke down he’d fix it instantly. If the van broke down he’d even fix that.

“He also would come up with some amazing money-saving ideas on tour, like cooking with a Coleman stove in the van. We even tried cooking baby potatoes that we got who knows where on tour. We had them baking under the hood of the van in foil near the engine while we were driving to our next show.”

Goodman says those road potatoes didn’t cook all the way through, but the inventiveness on the fly is priceless — and it was Mitchell’s idea. When times were tight on tour out West, Goodman says Mitchell was tirelessly undaunted and willing to experiment.

“There was a time on tour when Devin actually got a job at a Wendy’s in Ontario while he was figuring out a way to get some food,” Goodman recalls. “After an interview, they wanted him to start right away, but Devin told them he had to go home first to get ready.

“He could talk to anybody about anything. One time in the van he talked about the principles of time travel with drawings. He got frustrated because we didn’t understand it. It had something to do with lightning.

“He always remembered everyone’s name, too. He was a cool guy.”

Goodman continues: “This last show is going to be something else. We never really talked about ending it or breaking up. We just always thought that we’d be playing together. We have a new CD out that we’re really proud of, and we’re going to go out at the top of our game.”