Wholigan History

WOW !!!

40 years of Wholiganism

1982-2022

Here you will find everything from posters and ticket stubs,newspaper clippings, old

photo’s etc etc all from the growing years of The Wholigans since 1982.

If any of you have seen the band in the 80’s early 90’s and even the 2000’s, please send me

anything that you think would be interesting to put up here.

Keith Moon          https://thewholigans.com/keith/

John Entwistle    https://thewholigans.com/john/

Pete Townshend https://thewholigans.com/pete/

Roger Daltrey     https://thewholigans.com/roger/

Dingwalls,Camden(London) UK

Astoria/Mean Fiddler London 2006 WHO convention Bush Hall Shepherds Bush

Toronto ..The Edgewater ‘hotel’….$2 !!!!!!

The Wholigans family tree

It has taken many great musicians over the years to make The Wholigans….The Wholigans.

Each one added a new dimension to the greater part.

My thanks go to all of those Wholigans past & present, and Who knows where the future lies.

Who would have thought all those years ago we would still be doing this ….

LONG LIVE ROCK !

Keith Moon

82-83 Gerrard D’Menils R.I.P

83-88 Paul Holman

99- Chris Voll

88 -present *Darren Atkinson

2011 Joseph Bologna

2013 Billy Isner

2014 Rich Savarese

2014-present *Jim Neu

also there are a few other drummers around the world that have and do play when needed.
* current

John Entwistle

82-83 Joe Cerratto

83-86 Steve Mckenna

86-present *Dave ‘Gater’ Smith

99-2001 Reuben Drake

2002 Ray Harris

2005 *Mark Tinker

2013 Stoney Johnstone

Other bassists that have worked with The Wholigans are:

Mike Bisch (LA)

Curt Traynor (Detroit)
2014 Will Shelley

2014 Michael Conte

2016 * August Worley

Pete Townshend

82-83 Mario Forlini

82* Pierre Major ,2nd guitar

83-85 Gerard Popma

85-85 Dave Aplin

85-89 John Walsh

89-91 Pete Milner R.I.P July 8th 2011

99-present * Christopher Bacon

2004 Mike ‘Bones’ Legault (retired)

2005-present *Bill Canell

2006- Darren Lolk

2016 *Rob Phillips

*All play ‘Pete’ when available.

Roger Daltrey

1982-present day Barry Quinn

Keyboards

We have a keyboardist in a box ……………. (oh no it’s a bleedin box !)

He’s cheap, doesn’t take up too much room in the van, never complains & doesn’t drink the rider !

84-88 Cassette tape…….fired in 88 for stretching!

88-2001 CD……………………..fired in 01 for skipping !

2001-2010 Hardrive…………….fired for being overweght!

2010-present MP3 (when it decides to work) currently on probation.

& I must mention some of our great roadies over the years .

‘Crazy’ Al Mcauley…………….Toronto Soundman….…………..(famous for rolling an H joint 😉 😉

& flushing a toilet through his floor/my ceiling…. into my room below….uggh!

Jim ‘Load up the flashpots’ Popma….Toronto

He could change a string and have a guitar back on your neck in seconds!

Mike ‘one day you guys will work for me’ Chessman

& the worlds greatest roadie with a classic name……POO !

and as he say’s , it’s ‘POO’ as in shit …….Not as in Bear !

If I missed anybody I’m sorry, but then again the 80’s took a heavy toll !

When we started, tribute bands weren’t called tributes as there were only 3 or possibly 4 in existence !

So they didn’t know what to call us, so they came up with ‘CLONES’

Ugh! …..I hated that term.

1984

Paul Holman (drums) Barry, Gerard Popma (Guitar) Steve McKenna (bass)

We found the statue backdrop on University ave in Toronto, not perfect but pretty close huh ?

Also note the placing of the hands and heads etc, we even tried to do it perfect back then.

Weird thing is…here it is 2014, and Jeff Stein who wrote/directed/TheKidsAreAlright’ is now a friend of mine ,we spoke just a few days ago….how weird is that ?…..cool though 🙂

Steve McKenna ,bassist 82-83 till about 86.

This flag was auctioned off at the 2006 UK WHO convention signed by us and

The Casbah Club and Irish Jack.

The poster below was probably one of the first Wholigans posters ,

done in 82 ish (somewhere around there) it shows the first ‘Pete’ Mario Forlini who I was

in a band ‘Nouveau Riche’ with prior, in Montreal.

My hair is a Paul Stanley (Kiss)wig spray painted blonde ! (that’s a story for later 😉

This article is from a Halifax Nova Scotia newspaper where we used to play a bar

called ‘The Network’, & we would play there for a whole week (Mon-Sat) Closed Sundays

as that’s what you did back then.

Peter Clark Hall Guelph Ontario Canada

Toronto’s famous Elmo (photo below)

Below here you’ll see a ticket from ‘The upper Lip’ a small upstairs bar in

Toronto (long since closed) at Yonge& Wellesly (I’m not sure how to spell that?)

Next to it is a hospital wristband, heres the story……..

This was one of our earliest gigs in Toronto, either late 82 or early 83. We played 3 x 45 minute sets at

this point.

At the end of the 1st set we finished with a section from ‘Tommy’…Sparks …Pinball Wizard then

‘See me feel me/listening to you’

Well as I said before ‘The Upper Lip’ bar was very small ,including the ceiling above the stage

(I think you might know where I’m going here)

SO…I start swinging the mic (keep in mind this is my rookie Wholigan years, so I’m still learning)

There I was swinging the mic feeling like a rock star…then BOOM ! the mic hits the ceiling and comes down & smacks me right in the forehead !

30 seconds later I’m singing ‘See me…Feel me..touch me’ and blood starts pouring off my head down my face.
Well, as a sidenote ……at this time people were used to seeing Alice Cooper tribute bands and were used to seeing blood, so they thought my bleeding was all part of the show!……& they are cheering & going nuts !!!

I knew different but the people loved it, meanwhile I’m in pain trying to sing ‘see me’.

Well the bleeding got a bit much, so I took a headband/scarf and put it on my head

(Loverboy were big at the time hence the headband…honest ;]

So there I am looking like a cross between Roger Daltrey and Mike Reno of Loverboy. !

We finish the set and I’m still bleeding hurting, but fortunately there was a hospital a block away at Yonge & College?

I go to the hospital get stitches and make it back just in time for the next set, without hitting the ceiling again with my mic.

As the years have gone by ,that still goes down as the only person I’ve ever hit in 28 years

…….and it was ME!

Guelph University Ontario Canada mid 80’s ?

Most of what you see is from across Canada in the 80’s/90’s as we were based in Toronto, but toured across Canada many many many MANY times.

We used to call them ‘Husky’ tours as we used to stop in every Husky along the way, if you are Canadian you know what I’m talking about.

They make the best breakfast eh !

All Toronto area clubs.

Gerard Paul Steve Barry

Resting inbetween a video shoot for promo in Lee Arron’s studio,she recorded some stuff

then wedid our video,which I just found but it isn’t in good shape at all.

Before the video.

Gerard Popma our 2nd ‘Pete’ late 83ish-86 ?

During

and this from an 83 gig

Aww Poor baby’s…..couldn’t handle the loud n proud music of THE WHO

You’ll see a lot of ads for ‘The Gasworks’ that’s a famous bar downtown Toronto

(long gone I’mafraid)

A lot of people will recognise the name from Mike Myers ‘Waynes World’

The Gasworks was THE place to play,everyone from us to RUSH &Triumph,Max Webster,

Talas(Billy Sheehan) Coney Hatch,Frank Soda & the imps

….you name a Canadian band and they have all played there!

The KEE to Bala, now THAT was a party place up in Muskoka (cottage country).

Tiny dressing room though.

Jeff Healey opened for us (above) as a tribute to Cream at Larry’s under ‘Strange Brew’,

(Very ealy 80’s) it had to be only his 1st or 2nd gig, but I remember him walking through the

crowd with his guitar!

You’ll also see ads for Rock n Roll Heaven, that was beneath Q107’s building at

Yonge & Bloor ,we packed that place….. no matter what night !

We played a lot of “Farewell” /Final shows there 😉 😉

(sound famaliar to a certain band we all know ?)

That place was great !….thanks Gareth Brown who ran it and supplied endless beer

(great dressing rooms),and thanks to Andy Frost

who mc’d most of our shows and to John Derringer and the 6o’clock rock report

& to Bob Segarini.

Good days my friends…good days.

Theres a story behind this next page.

We played at a bar in Calgary (see below) F&J in Calgary, & in the first set I get a note

from 2 “fans” (we play 2 x 1 hours)

So for the 1st set I dressed in the clothes you see below as that’s what Daltrey wore in the

early 80’s, just doing my job right?………………………Wrong! ……apparently.

A woman/ watching the show gave me the 1st green note on the left (below) after the first set

and she signed it Mrs.Leah & Co

(who is now probably shitting bricks or laughing her head off that I still have this !)

The notes tell the story, but bottom line was ,they hated my act/look, but they came around

during /after the 2nd set as I switched to more grungy Live at Leeds type look.

The husband wrote the 2nd note on the right.

I have fan letters and stories like this galore, and some stories better left unsaid to protect

the innocent/guilty

The above b&w photo’s were shot by Herb Ritz (is that how you spell it) who is famous for many

shots including Madonna’s book.

Updated Aug 23rd 10am

Fast Forward to 2003 (I’ll fill in the earlier years later)…….I promise

Here’s a couple of pages from the 2003 UK WHO convention programme

This is from the German WHO convention held just March in Hamburg.

The next 2 pagesare from the 03 UK programme , written by MikeHH who along with Dino put

the celebration day together.

2006 UK WHO Convention

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