Principal The Grapes Of Wrath songwriters, Tom Hooper and Kevin Kane, return to The Carleton after last summer’s amazing full band shows, for an acoustic duo show on Friday, June 27th. Show time is 7:30 PM and tickets – while they last – are $45 + HST.

Kevin Kane first met Tom Hooper in 1977 (when they were aged 13 and 11) after Kevin and Tom’s older brother Chris bonded over a mutual love of The Beatles, after the two entered junior high school in Kelowna, B.C. Kane started hanging out with the Hoopers in their basement for regular Friday night jam sessions and essentially learned to play their respective instruments together.

By 1983 – influenced in equal parts by the British Invasion bands and the DIY attitudes and immediacy of punk and new wave – the trio took the name The Grapes Of Wrath and began working on the songs that would make up their début EP (1994) and the first album, September Bowl Of Green, in 1985, released by the fledgling Vancouver indie Nettwork Productions, The band were soon signed to Capitol/EMI for the albums Treehouse (1987) with the breakout singles “Peace Of Mind” and “Backward Town,” Now And Again (1989) building on their successes with “All The Things I Wasn’t” and “What Was Going Through My Head,” as well as These Days (1991) featuring the hits “I Am Here” and “You May Be Right.” Thanks in no small part to the support of MuchMusic, The Grapes enjoyed gold and platinum sales, sold out shows in Canada, extensive radio play and toured Europe twice in support of albums that also saw releases in Japan, Australia and South America. Then – with international success looming, and reasons no one is exactly clear on – they disbanded in 1992.

Tom and Kevin resurrected the Grapes in the late ’90s, releasing the album Field Trip (2000) on the Song Corp label, which folded immediately after its release. They came together again in the summer of 2009 for a series of acoustic shows around B.C., celebrating their enduring friendship and the music they’d made together. The following year, an offer from a festival for a full band reunion led to the return of drumer Chris and the original three recorded High Road (2013) named after the street the Hoopers lived when they first started playing together as kids. It was their first album of new material in almot 22 years. They have been gigging regularly and are arguably the longest running and still-active “original line-up in rock.

Now – and as they did in 2009 – Tom and Kevin once again hit the road as a duo to perform The Grapes’ music in an intimate, unplugged setting – telling the stories behind the songs and putting the focus on the harmonies and melodies of their timeless music.