Waiting For Sunday is not a bar band. They don’t exist for the momentary gratification of a few drunken townies by playing true-to-form covers of “Summer Of ‘69”. Nor do they grow their hair long, wear leather pants and parade themselves for an hour while the pretend that half-empty barrooms are sold out shows at Madison Square Garden.This is probably why their August 19^th performance at the Point Pub in Port Moody was an awkward occasion.While the couches, tables, and bar stools that housed local old-timers and college-age drinkers, it was evident that they weren’t necessarily there to experience the Port Moody indie scene. What they expected was Bryan Adams covers. What they got was the fully nurtured sound of Waiting For Sunday. The surprise and initial shock surely destabilized the audience, but by the end of their set, there were plenty of converts.Storming through their set of acoustic-based pop rock, the band immediately dispelled the vanity of a standard bar band with their collection of genuinely tragic cuts from their 2010 release The Courage, The Strength, The Wisdom and Doubt. For a band that has been around for roughly a year, scraping their way through beer halls and open mics, Waiting For Sunday certainly plays with the intensity of seasoned veterans. Of course, relentless touring will mold a band that way.Most recently the band powered their way through the Interior through to Alberta, playing to half empty rooms night after night. While this became increasingly frustrating, the band persevered with unbridled optimism. “With those shows, it becomes about pleasing those four people”, Bassist Mircea Tracke mentions to me while we chat on the patio before their set. Vocalist Dan Hudson further notes that this method of gaining notoriety is vital in the early formulation of the band’s fanbase because “it’s one thing to play to a hundred of your friends, but it’s entirely different to convince five people you don’t know to come to the next show”. Surely, with the amount of distance covered by the band early on, little pockets of fans have started to develop around Western Canada.This admirable work ethic that emerges against the demoralizing and intimidating landscape of the Canadian independent music scene is nothing new to the band. While many bands dwell over the convenience of some sort of an administrative team, Waiting For Sunday tries to keep the business side localized amongst the group and a handful of trusted colleagues. Guitarist Matt Gauld professes that offstage; the band is no longer musicians, but businessmen who must expand the presence of the band. Alongside playing to where no one knows you, this is a necessary evil.

While a lot has changed from Matt and Dan skipping work to write music on the beach, the do-it-yourself approach has always played an important factor in their development. Colin Everall, who produced the record, and is now residing as the hard-hitting drummer for Waiting For Sunday, mentioned that even in producing the record, he avoided the opportunity to smooth out rougher edges of the record. “We were going to keep things a little rough around the edges, to keep some of that authenticity”, Everall says between sips of beer, “we didn’t use auto-tune, or anything like that. We hit lines fifty times until we got it right”.  One of the main points of the record, as Gauld points out is that “we really wanted to represent the live show… we didn’t want to do anything that we couldn’t do live”, further explaining the loose minimalist approach to production that went into the record.Of course, with the addition of Everall, this live performance has changed since recording. The dynamic of the band connotes a heavier, more energized set that that differs from the record. Obviously this newly established chemistry formulated around a mutual musical ideology and communal work ethic. The bigger, fully evolved version of this band is unshakably solid and contributes greatly to the inevitable transcendence from small, unfilled bar rooms that Waiting For Sunday will experience soon.Feel free to check out their website at: www.wfsmusic.comOr you can pick up their record on iTunesWritten By: Jamie CessfordPhotography By: Matthew J Van Deventer