The Sheepdogs - Nov. 22, 2022
Concert photography and review by William Muir.
Walking into Centre In The Square that night, you could feel it before you even saw the merch table. This was one of those shows where everybody had decided in advance that they were going to have a good time. Denim jackets, western shirts, a suspiciously high number of moustaches per capita. The Sheepdogs had basically turned Queen Street into a little pocket of Saskatoon.
Boy Golden set the tone perfectly. That whole cosmic country thing works way better in a theatre than it has any right to. Warm harmonies, pedal steel that actually breathes, and songs that feel like they have been hanging out on your patio for years even if you are hearing them for the first time. You could tell a chunk of the crowd was there for The Sheepdogs and had no idea who Boy Golden was, but by the end of the set people were leaning in, actually listening, not just killing time at the bar. Their run of 2022 dates together meant the pairing was dialled in by the time they hit Kitchener, and it showed.
Then the room went dark, the big glowing Sheepdogs sign popped to life, and the band walked out like it was the most casual thing in the world. No preamble. No video package. Just a count in and straight into that thick, guitar heavy groove that is basically their calling card.
What works so well with The Sheepdogs in a room like Centre In The Square is the combination of precision and looseness. The sound in that hall is clean and honest, which means there is nowhere to hide. Every twin guitar line, every three part harmony, every drum fill sits right in front of you. Lesser bands get exposed in that kind of clarity. These guys use it as rocket fuel. The riffs land harder, the harmonies feel bigger, and those little rhythmic pushes they do suddenly make perfect sense.
The set built the way a proper rock show should. Early on you got the instant hooks, the sing along choruses, the reminder of why they are on every Canadian festival poster. When they hit songs like Feeling Good and I Have Got A Hole Where My Heart Should Be, you could feel the front half of the floor turn into a choir. They are not reinventing the wheel with these tunes, and that is sort of the point. It is straight ahead rock and roll, played by people who care about tone, time, and how it all feels in your chest.
Mid set they stretched out a bit more. Those long guitar breaks where Ewan and Ricky wander off into Allman Brothers territory are where Centre In The Square really flexes. The hall gives them room to let the solos breathe without ever turning into mush. You hear the pick attack, the bend, the little imperfections that make live guitar fun. It never slipped into self indulgent noodling. It always snapped back to the song.
Visually, it was exactly what you want from a band that wears its record collection on its sleeve. Long hair, flares, denim, suede. Zero irony. They lean into the classic rock aesthetic and somehow make it feel current instead of costume. The lighting design did not try to compete, it just backed them up. Warm washes, simple backlights, and a few well timed hits on the logo in the big moments. You are there to watch a band, not a light show, and the production respected that.
One thing that really stood out was how good they are at pacing an evening. They never parked in one tempo for too long. For every heavy stomp like Rock and Roll (Ain’t No Simple Thing) there was a pocket tune that let everyone catch their breath without killing the momentum. When they leaned into Southern Dreaming, you could see couples in the balcony sway a little closer. When they dropped into Downtown, it turned right back into a party.
By the time they reached the home stretch, it felt less like a band working through a tour set and more like a victory lap. The encore hit that sweet spot between fan service and fun for the band. No one was checking their watch. People were genuinely bummed when the house lights came up.
From a purely nerdy perspective, it was also one of those nights where you are quietly proud of the room. Centre In The Square has this way of rewarding bands that actually play dynamically. When The Sheepdogs pulled things down, the crowd went with them and you could hear a pin drop between notes. When they cranked it back up, the whole place moved as one. That is the difference between a theatre show and a bar gig. You get the weight and volume of a rock concert with the detail of a listening room.
Walking out into the cold afterward, there was that buzz you only get from a proper rock show. People were humming melodies, arguing about which guitar solo was best, already checking their phones to see when the band might be back. The Sheepdogs did exactly what you want from them in Kitchener: plug in, play loud, and remind everyone that classic rock is not a museum piece. It is alive, it is sweaty, and for a couple of hours at Centre In The Square, it felt like the most important thing in the world.
