By Declan Finucane. Published April 18, 2022 at 5:25 pm.
“Things have come full circle for The Dreamboats.
Actually, it won’t be until April 29 at the Living Arts Centre (LAC) that the serendipitous circle for the award-winning Mississauga ’50s and ’60s tunes band will be officially completed.
The foursome, in their 30s and together since 2009, are returning home for their first-ever show on stage at the LAC’s largest venue–the 1,300-seat Hammerson Hall.
Show time is 8 p.m. and tickets cost $45 to $60.
The Dreamboats, who picked up and headed to Southern California for good on Jan. 8 in pursuit of their lifelong dream to “make it big”, have played the LAC once before, entertaining an RBC Theatre audience in 2019.
But to do their thing on stage in Hammerson Hall, which seats more than three times the RBC’s capacity of 400, is a dream come true for these guys.
“The (LAC) would be my Wembley Stadium,” Port Credit native Ritchie Hummins (lead vocals, guitar) told insauga.com during a recent phone interview from the band’s new home in Joshua Tree, California.
He is, of course, referencing the famous London soccer stadium.
And much like young soccer strikers dream of one day playing on that famous pitch, Hummins and his bandmates have stars in their eyes as they prep for the upcoming Mississauga show.
Johnny G. Wiz (drums, vocals), who joined Hummins on the interview call, agrees wholeheartedly the LAC gig is a huge deal for the band.
The two tell a story of ice skating around Celebration Square, next to the LAC, some years ago and imagining themselves one day playing Hammerson Hall.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome to play the LAC,” they used to wonder.
What adds to the serendipitous nature of their story is that 2019 wasn’t the first time the band members did their musical thing at Mississauga’s largest arts venue.
Wiz says it was back in the early-to-mid 2000s when he, Hummins and Justin Zoltek (bass guitar, vocals), in their late teens at the time, competed with different groups in a Battle of the Bands staged at the LAC’s RBC Theatre.
“We were 17 or 18 back then, and we didn’t know one another,” recalls Wiz. “And then at the 2019 show we all did together, we were backstage at the RBC (Theatre) and saw these posters of that Battle of the Bands way back then that we had all signed at the time. That was very cool.”
No doubt The Dreamboats will also find it “very cool” in less than two weeks when they start belting out the tunes–both covers and original material–inside Hammerson Hall.
“We’re playing at the Mississauga Living Arts Centre, our biggest hometown gig to date, if not the biggest ticketed event we’ve ever played,” enthuses Hummins.
The band, rounded out by Nicky Domino (lead guitar), will stay in the GTA following the Mississauga show. They’re slated to play the Burlington Performing Arts Centre on May 3.
The Dreamboats have won multiple awards over the years through the Mississauga Arts Council as well as a Mississauga Music Awards honour in 2020.”
