From 2005

Mute player to the right before playing the video>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

The Wholigans on Youtube

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Promo

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(bass) who plays with the band till this day mainly in Canada.

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  a Florida only 'Moon', Chris Voll, he played 2000 till 2002? ish .The current  bassist is Mark Tinker.
Read an interesting story on how Mark got the gig here

Then 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

From Newcastle to Canada to Florida  'Barry's story'

PDF  with photo's from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle 2003

Wholigan WHistOry

Newcastle Opera house 2003

Las Vegas Fremont St August 2009