The multi-purpose grill and music pub, located at 289 Rutherford Road South in Brampton, is back to hosting live bands
BRAMPTON: March 17, 2020, will remain etched in our collective memory for a long time to come.
It was St. Paddys day. People would go out enjoying like there was no tomorrow. Bars, restaurants, pubs would be packed with reveling crowds eating, drinking and making merry.
But, alas, it did not happen that day!
Ontario had shut down as the pandemic started wreaking havoc in Canada as elsewhere in the world.
Days later, many restaurants closed their doors forever as they could not sustain being shut. Even when the government decided to sporadically open them up for two brief interludes, many found it not feasible to reopen.
However just this past week, Ontario announced that the capacity restrictions on most entertainment hubs would be lifted and eateries could go back to “normal”, with a caveat: patrons still had to mask up and show their vaccination certificates to enter.
Spot 1 is one such place in the Peel region that braved extremely bad weather and is now slowly turning things around. This multi-purpose grill and music pub, located at 289 Rutherford Road South in Brampton, has hosted diverse events from Vikas Kohli’s Bollywood Monster Mashup to well known legacy Canadian bands such as Anvil, Teenage Head, The Kings and many more.
At a recent live band event, the owner Tony DeLucia said, “It is like starting over again. I started this place 37 years ago on May 25, 1984, not knowing how things would turn out. But things went well and I was doing fine, catering to even the Bramalea Lions Club.
“Not only that, but the Bramalea Rotary club would meet here periodically. I have had the Corvette club meet here as well. And we had line dancing every Wednesday, karaoke nights and live bands like today. We catered to everybody from bikers to even a Bollywood event.”
Adds his wife Olive, with Parminder sitting next to her husband, “Yes, we know Parm and his family who are long time friends of ours and the staff. They are very loyal and help us out whenever we ask. Wonderful family.”
“It has been very, very tough the last year and half, but like I said, it is like starting over again,” Tony continues. “I don’t know how it will go. I am unsure. I have started with live shows, line dancing followed by Karaoke. I still cater for the Lions club and some of my faithful biker crowd is coming back, so let’s see.”
Nick Sinopoli of The Carpet Frogs, the legendary Canadian band playing that night, let his hair hang down.
Nick Sinopoli said, “We currently play with Canadian rock icons Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman of The Guess Who and have worked with many others including Shakira, Wyclef Jean and Norah Jones (daughter of Ravi Shankar, sultan of sitar).
“We’re glad to be playing Spot 1, an amazing live venue, especially since I used to live in Brampton, not 10 minutes from here. It’s like coming home.
“We can pick up tunes right away. At one point at the multi-band Live 8 concert (2005 in Barrie, Canada), we literally learned BTO (Bachman Turner Overdrive) tunes on the fly with no rehearsing, nothing! A member of Deep Purple saw us practicing extempore and said –‘ you guys ain’t doing this’ and we said ‘yeah we are, ‘ and we got up on stage with Randy and blew everybody away!”
That night, The Carpet Frogs once again blew everyone away at Spot 1.
Comprised of Gerry Finn, Michael Zweig, Sean Fitzsimons, Nick and Jeff Jones who was originally with another legendary Canadian band ‘ Rush’ and still also plays with legend Tom Cochrane, they played classic rock tunes from The Beatles, Elton John, Chubby Checker (“let’s twist again” which was very popular in India with Manna Dey doing the Indian version “Aao twist karein” in the movie “Bhoot Bangla”) and of course The Doors(another popular band in India with Gary Lawyer of Mumbai impersonating Jim Morrison lead singer of The Doors to a T).
It was a real swinging night with the audience dancing away like dervishes!
Brampton has rocked back to life!
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