UnCovered returns to Musical Stage Company with U2 and the Rolling Stones

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/By Aisling Murphy / Oct 18, 2024

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Musical theatre performers singing the catalogues of U2 and The Rolling Stones? In Toronto? Really?

You must be new here.

For 18 years, Toronto’s Musical Stage Company has put on UnCovered, an inventive concert that reimagines the catalogue of influential musical artists using the talents of local actors, singers, and instrumentalists. UnCovered is always a hit with audiences — last year’s edition, which featured the music of Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles, likely still lingers fresh in the minds of anyone who was there. (Confession: MSC artistic associate and UnCovered arranger, orchestrator, and music supervisor Kevin Wong’s soul-crushing “Landslide” haunts me to this day.)

This year, Wong will steer the UnCovered ship to the tune of, yes, U2 and The Rolling Stones, for four performances at Koerner Hall. Featuring performances by Wong as well as Colin Asuncion, Hailey Gillis, Kelly Holiff, Andrew Penner, Lydia Persaud, Jackie Richardson, Shaemus Swets, and Enya Watson, this year’s UnCovered once more promises to present the works of these legendary bands in unexpected ways.

“It’s a really diverse cast of voices and styles, and they’re all bringing their A-game,” shared Wong in an interview with Intermission. “It’s starting to get really exciting in the room.”

How did Musical Stage land on U2 and The Rolling Stones? Wong shared that those bands have been in the UnCovered pipeline for a few years, but he understands why people might go “Huh?” when they hear the pairing.

“I get it,” he said with a laugh. “But the more research you do, the more intuitive it becomes. There’s a lot of social commentary and reflection on humanity from both bands. And there’s a certain thread of admiration expressed by Bono for the Stones and their influence on his stuff. There’s something about their relationship to social commentary and discontent that was really interesting to me.”

Putting these concerts together requires months of preparation on the musical side. Over the years, UnCovered has built a reputation for reinventing pop and rock tracks until they sound like a completely new piece of art. That transformation demands strong working knowledge of music theory, given the songs are almost always transposed and re-orchestrated to fit the needs of a given year’s ensemble.

“What you see in the audience is really the tip of a very long collaborative iceberg,” said Wong. “We schedule two to three arrangement sessions per song with the artists, because the artists are so instrumental in determining what their vision of the song is going to be. If I chord-change something and it doesn’t fit, then that’s all part of the conversation. It takes a really long time to finesse the narrative interpretation of these songs — right before we get into the room for rehearsal, I start charting all the band parts, and then we change a bunch more in the room.”

According to Wong, the final product lies in the hands of the artists on stage, all of whom bring vast lived experience as musicians to the UnCovered process. “For example, with Penner, he has such a deep relationship to his guitar,” explained Wong, “and so his guitar figures into both of his solos this year. It’s integral to the way he expresses story as an artist. I don’t even remember who suggested first that he play on his songs — it was just one of those things that intuitively was understood.”

One year of UnCovered stands out as a favourite for Wong: 2017’s exploration of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.

“Something about the richness of their music pairs together so well,” he recalled. “It was so rich for interpretation, and it was easy to interpret the songs in a way that still felt like they were doing honour and service to the original writers. Sometimes when writing and rewriting for UnCovered, it’s about the chord shapes, the melody shapes, or the lyrics themselves. That year was kind of all three.”

And looking ahead, a few songbooks beckon to Wong as possible contenders for the UnCovered treatment.

“Phil Collins,” he shared. “George Michael. Madonna. Janet Jackson. Those are my top four. I don’t know if all of them will happen, but they’re at the top of my list for sure.”

This year, says Wong, the final stages of UnCovered are coming together quickly, with new surprises in the rehearsal room every day. He says audiences can look forward to a trio arrangement of the Stones’ “Moonlight Mile,” inspired by three-part groups like The Chicks. “There’s something about it that’s such a departure from the rest of the concert,” he explained. “It’s stunning.”

“I think we can sometimes forget with bands that are consistently prolific, that have regular output, just how incredibly edgy and counterculture their early stuff was,” said Wong. “Particularly with The Rolling Stones, but really with both bands — sometimes it’s hard to remind people that U2 had something to say about the moment they lived in before the iTunes automatic album download controversy.

“I find digging back into this early material often brings you back to feeling like these artists are new again.”

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UnCovered runs at Koerner Hall from October 22 – 25. Tickets are available here.

WRITTEN BY

Aisling Murphy

Aisling is Intermission's former senior editor and the theatre reporter for the Globe and Mail. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.

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