Note: This story was originally published June 28, 2013. We are republishing it in recognition of Drew Burns' death this past weekend. Writer Aaron Chapman has just put the finishing touches on his book on the history of the Commodore Ballroom.
Very sad to learn of Drew Burns' passing. Now the Commodore book dedicated to him, will instead be to his memory.
— Aaron Chapman (@TheAaronChapman)
"I took seven chartered aircraft to Las Vegas full of singles. Nobody had done that before," laughs Drew Burns over lunch in Coal Harbour.
Best remembered as the legendary impresario of the Commodore Ballroom for nearly 30 years, he recalls how he got his improbable start in Vancouver's entertainment scene in the decades long before the term "social networking," when bringing people together required a different set of strategies.
"In 1966, I started the Fifth Day Club -- the fifth day being Friday -- as a singles club in Vancouver. It was unique at the time because all that was around were the dreary hotel beer parlours. We didn't have a venue, but we started holding parties at the Bayshore and Hotel Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and packing these places.
For a $5 fee you got a Gold Card membership in the club. We made all the local radio DJs honorary members, and they all started talking about it on air."
"On the Las Vegas trip, I had buses to take people out to the airport. I had to be on the first plane to be there when everybody arrived, and on the last plane back with the passenger list to make sure everybody got home because there were so many hungover stragglers!"
What began as a sideline suddenly became a nine-to-five job with, according to Burns, the Fifth Day Club being the largest singles club in North America with some 15,000 members.
"One of the first nights we did was at the Commodore. The owner then, Doug Gourley, had been watching me [run the Fifth Day club]. He offered to sell the Commodore to me."
Purchasing the Commodore in the fall of 1968, Burns walked the stairs up to the second floor ballroom nearly every day for the next 28 years and set the standard for club operators in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»that few came close to.
Along with some of the early independent concert promoters in the city, Burns presented a litany of rock, blues, punk, folk, jazz, reggae, ska and world music bands from Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and abroad that the city had never seen before, with bands like U2, the Clash, and the Police all performing their Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»debuts at the Commodore.
And though Burns, who lives in False Creek, today enjoys retirement away from the nightlife -- with easier hours than the late nights he put in as a club owner -- he keeps an eye on the local music scene and involves himself with projects that strike his interest, such as helping promote local singer Jayleen Stonehouse's Tribute to Dinah Washington show.
"Drew was one of the first persons to give me a gig in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and believed in me," says Stonehouse. "He had me open for some other bigger acts that came through town at the Commodore when I first arrived in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»in the early '90s."
That same quote might be said by enough musicians in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and abroad to fill the Commodore several times over, as Burns is fondly remembered by just about every band or bartender that worked at the Ballroom through the years he operated it.
"It's been really nice to hear from people who saw shows there or from the musicians themselves, who thought I did something special," Burns says. "The Commodore is special. There's no place like it in Canada."
Billboard magazine would agree -- in 2011 naming the Commodore one of North Americas 10 most influential clubs alongside New York's Bowery Ballroom and San Francisco's Fillmore.
"Drew left an indelible stamp on the music business in Vancouver," says Gord Knights, the current general manager of the Ballroom, which is now owned and operated by Live Nation.
"With his years of mentorship and keen business sense, and his personal love for the Commodore. Today we operate the Ballroom with the same focus. We consider ourselves curators of a very valuable and fragile resource in our cultural community. Drew was our founder."
The legacy of the venues history has been recognized by the current management on the Commodores website (commodoreballroom.ca), which now features a searchable online show archive of 40 years of concerts listing every band and artist that's played the Ballroom from 1973-2013, with more years to follow. Full disclosure: I was involved in some of the research for compiling the archive.
With the title of "Showman," Burns himself is immortalized in the B.C. Entertainment Show Business Hall Star Walk on the sidewalk of Granville Street. (Although the exact location was inexplicably moved by the city from its just spot outside the front door of the Commodore, to further north up the street when Granville sidewalks were pulled up in the major redesign the street went under in 2009.)
Burns admits that even though he hasn't been involved with the Ballroom since he retired from it more than 15 years ago, people still stop him on the street and ask how things are down at the Commodore. "I always tell them," he says with a smile, "I haven't seen you there for awhile. Why don't you come down sometime and say hi."
Do you have a favourite story or memory of the Commodore Ballroom to share? If so, write to [email protected].
