OUR STORY
The Story of The Wholigans
When I first left Newcastle England for Canada in 1980 I knew I wanted to
rock, but The Wholigans and The Who were not even occupying any part of my
brain, it really wasn't my thing. I was into Black Sabbath, Ozzy, Judas
Priest, Ufo, Status Quo, Budgie, Thin Lizzy.So I join a band in
Montreal called Nouveau Riche and we played originals (very 80's metal),
one day on the train to Montreal someone mentioned my passing resemblance
to Roger to which I shrugged and said thanks I think. After playing for a
while we added some cover songs just a couple of Who which I really wasn't
familiar with and after I sang them people came up and said how much they
liked it, so we added a couple more. That went down well and the guitarist
Mario Forlini closely resembled Pete so things were eerily falling into
place (none of this was planned). We changed the name of the band to The
Whooligans (note the 2 o's)
The word 'tribute' was not around then in connection to bar bands, at
least not as predominant as it is today.
Next up we move to Toronto and changed the name to The Wholigans and
the band stayed at my place most of the time, we played a few gigs and
eventually hired a new bassist Steve McKenna who was a great ox. Then we
got a little more picky concerning our stage show and replaced the
guitarist with a new Pete called Gerard Popma and on drums Paul Holman,
the new guys really kicked my ass to play the part right as they were huge
WHO fans.
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum....somewhere along the
line I went from merely singing the songs to really enjoying singing them,
the audience feedback was a big help and I found myself being consumed by
The orribl oo! ....and loving it.
After a couple of years we changed the guitarist to a fella called John
Walsh who looked like a mini-Pete and he was an integral part in making
The Wholigans quite a commodity. He and I did not get along off stage
(like Pete n Rog), but on stage it was a beautiful thing and we both knew
it.
The band was very popular all over Canada and the USA throughout the 80's.
Around 86 we hired Dave Smith who played with the band until 2004.
Eventually though, John (Pete)..ssssssconfusing I know, anyways John
left and we hired another Pete called Pete Milner and a new drummer who is
our current Moony he is Darren Atkinson. That version of Pete didn't work
out so the band dissolved after a year or so.
I moved to Florida in 92 (I think) and took a 7 year hiatus and found
myself itching to play again, I auditioned tons of who wannabees, let me
tell you that was rough. I somewhat hired a new Pete but then I got a
phone call answering my advert and the guy said to me "whoever you've got
playing guitar now get rid of him because I'm your man".....that guy was
the current Pete, Chris Bacon. The man has got balls I tell ya, but you
know what? He was right!
We auditioned a number of different players over a year and hired our
current Florida only Moony, Chris Voll, he plays some of the Florida
dates. The current Florida bassist is Mark Tinker.
One day I get a call from Canada and it's Darren asking me if I'd be
interested in playing up in Canada with a new Pete called Mike Legault, I
said yes and we did a tour . Mike did one tour of the UK with us, but due
to physical problems can no longer tour.
The current lineup that plays 99.9% of shows is
Barry Quinn.............Roger
Christopher Bacon....Pete
Darren Atkinson.......Keith
Mark Tinker............John
So come out and experience what it was like to see The Who in their prime,
and bring yer earplugs ;)
Barry
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