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Musical family brings ’50s and ’60s music to life with interactive show in Chilliwack

‘Relive the Music 50s and 60s’ is coming to the Chilliwack Cultural Centre
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Steve Marshall and his family present ‘Relive the Music 50s & 60s Rock N Roll’ on Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022 at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre. (Submitted)

A musical family will be bringing their rock’n’roll show to the Chilliwack Cultural Centre this weekend.

Steve Marshall and his family present Relive the Music 50s & 60s Rock N Roll on Sunday, Sept. 25. The interactive show is described as a rock/opera/musical concert with a Broadway feel.

“My daughter Kimi is our guitar player, my youngest daughter Zenia is one of the main singers, my wife Luisa Marshall (who’s been on Oprah and Ellen) is a world renowned Tina Turner tribute artist who stars as many artists in this show,” Marshall said. “I’m the drummer and my sister-in-law is also one of the main singers. We have been described as the Von Trapp/Partridge family.”

How the family ended up touring around the world and how it all came about is a unique story. It took a bar burning down in Penticton, a band member telling Marshall to hire this unknown band and kids growing up in a musical family to eventually create the show.

Back in the late 1980s, Marshall – who owns Daddy Cools Pub in Haida Gwaii – hired a Filipino band to play in his pub after a lot of prodding from another band.

The Filipino band actually wouldn’t have been available the week that Marshall hired them had it not been for the fact that the bar in Penticton where they were booked had burned to the ground.

Eventually Marshall and the leader of the Filipino band, Luisa Mendez, fell in love. They created a cover band and flew to Dubai to perform for three months in the ’90s.

Mendez sang two Tina Turner songs while there and audience members kept telling her she looked like Tina Turner. Mendez thought they were crazy.

One day, while shopping in a mall in Dubai, Marshall saw a Tina Turner-ish looking wig, asked her to put it on and she did. Then she started singing the two Tina Turner songs with the wig on for fun and the crazy, Marshall recalled.

Mendez has since been on Oprah twice and on the Ellen Show.

The couple has two children, Kimi and Zenia who were raised around music. Kimi, the older daughter, became a guitar player/songwriter and Zenia became a singer-songwriter, Ariana Grande tribute artist and TV actress.

Marshall always wanted to create the Relive the Music of the 50s & 60s show with the idea of a big voiceover guy telling trivia before each song, and in 2018 it happened.

His family thought he was crazy, he said.

But once tickets started selling fast, the family realized they were onto something so they worked together to create the show. They performed 19 standing ovations in a row, and many sold out shows, and then COVID hit.

Now they are back at it with new members, new songs, many more costumes and lots of fun times, Marshall said.

Relive the Music 50s & 60s Rock N Roll is at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre on Sunday, Sept. 25 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $39/$59 and available at the Centre Box Office, online at chilliwackculturalcentre.ca or by calling 604-391-SHOW(7469).

For more, go to ReliveTheMusic.ca.

Looking for more events taking place in and around Chilliwack? Check out What’s happening Chilliwack in our community section.


 

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