Pete Agnew (right), at 71, is the lone original member of NazarethKeith Fitzgerald.
Above the 58th parallel, pressed up against the tree line, lies Kuujjuaq, Quebec’s northernmost Inuit village. Caribou roam about a landscape that changes with the tides. There’s no road access,
But still, every August, Kuujjuaq puts on the Aqpik Jam Music Festival, and in recent years, a committee has been tasked with booking some acts that fly up from the south. This year, Mayor Tunu Napartuk went much farther afield, reaching across the Atlantic to hire Scottish hard rockers Nazareth.
“Earlier in the year, we asked the population of Kuujjuaq to see who they would want to bring in,” Napartuk said. “And it came down to a couple of performers and Nazareth was one of them. So we contacted Nazareth and they were interested, despite their tight summer schedule of touring.”
After getting the invitation, Pete Agnew, at 71, the lone original member of a group that has rocked for almost 50 years, responded: “Why not?”
The trip north was another highlight of the decades-long love affair between Nazareth and Canada, where the band achieved its greatest early success. Back in the 1970s, Canada was Nazareth’s best market. By 1981, the band had achieved two platinum and seven gold albums in Canada.
For a rock band, Kuujjuaq is no ordinary gig, but it’s part of a long-standing tradition for Nazareth. “We’ve done a lot of these [First Nations] gigs,” Agnew said. “We actually have a reputation for it. Anytime they want to do something like this, they call on us to see if we would go.” However, Napartuk, who grew up listening to the band, was unaware of this reputation when he booked them.
Aqpik Jam is the largest music festival in Nunavik – a region comprising the top third of Quebec – and is dedicated to celebrating musicians with Inuit roots. In recent years, their roster has included non-Indigenous Canadian pop and tribute bands. The event takes place in a newly built town hall and conference centre with a 500-seat capacity and modern acoustics design, lighting and audio equipment.
The band, which now includes lead singer Carl Sentance, lead guitarist Jimmy Murrison, bass guitarist Agnew and his son, Lee, the drummer, found Kuujjuaq offered a kind of gig that was different from any of their regular stops across Canada.
The entire village attends with children. “Right away, Carl Sentance was going: ‘Okay, we’ve definitely got to watch the language tonight,’” Agnew said. “It’s not only a family show," he quipped, "they’ve got their dogs with them, too.”
The band and its road crew rode about Kuujjuaq in a half-sized yellow school bus with a broken back window. Agnew good-naturedly referred to it as “the air conditioning.” The temperature hovered at about 12 degrees when Nazareth played the show on Aug. 14.
There is a particular reward in playing remote communities, Agnew says. "You’re looking at the audience and you’re thinking, well, this is a wee bit different.”
Napartuk says the that during the 1970s, rock music became more available in the community and “a lot of people grew up listening to Nazareth,” he said. “I spoke to a number of people who listened to the performance and they said it brought back a lot of beautiful memories.”
The Scottish hard rockers drape a Canadian flag across their equipment before the encoreKeith Fitzgerald.
Nazareth connected with a lot of other Canadians, too, being one of the first international rock bands to tour Canada coast to coast. Most other bands set up North American tours, playing primarily in the United States, but popping north of the border at a few key Canadian cities. Instead, Nazareth has always ventured to cities such as Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina. And they still do.
Because of it, Nazareth constantly plays on the same bill as Canadian bands. “We are about the only other band on the bill that is not Canadian,” Agnew said. “But a lot of people think we are. We have always been associated with Canada. “
Their big breakthrough in Canada occurred because of Canadian content-broadcast rules. Nazareth had no idea the rules existed, and were astonished to hear their 1973 hit This Flight Tonight was playing on Canadian radio three times an hour. Written by Joni Mitchell, the song passed muster as Canadian content. “So we were almost guaranteed a monster hit,” Agnew said. “All our tours sold out, coast to coast. God bless Cancon.”
Last month, Nazareth did an all-Canada tour, with no stops in the United States. One British-born fan flew all the way from his permanent home in Tampa, Fla., to attend all four of the band’s Ontario shows.
“I enjoy the Canadian tour,” Agnew said. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it. I don’t need to come.” (The band has a huge following in parts of Europe and in Brazil.)
Nazareth went to a lot of trouble to get to the Kuujjuaq show. They performed in Kamloops, B.C., flew to Calgary, and then to Montreal, where they stayed a night. Then they jumped aboard a 2½ hour flight to the Inuit community – Agnew jokes that the $3,500 plane tickets were the most expensive in the world – stayed one night in Nunavik, then flew back to Saskatoon: They made a four-day detour to do a show for an Inuit community in the far north of Quebec.
The band then continued its tour east. The shows in Ontario were packed, and just as it does at every gig, Nazareth drapes a Canadian flag across their equipment before the encore.
“You know what happens,” Agnew said. “You fall in love with the country that loves you.”