TOTAL INSIDER
Canadian icons saga , release acoustic re-tellings of classic songs . RE-issues first 6 releases in vinyl .
In 1982 Saga ruled the progressive and rock airwaves with songs like “ On The Loose ”, “ Wind Him Up ” and “ The Flyer ” They have consistently put out 23 amazing records since then and have a reputation as one of the best live bands ever . I recently had the chance to sit down with co-founder bassist and songwriter Jim Crichton , about the band ’ s upcoming release Symmetry , a collection of acoustic retellings of the band ’ s classic songs .
What was the idea behind doing the album “ Symmetry ” and the acoustic re-telling of some of Saga ’ s greatest songs ?
JIM : Well , I mean , it was really simple . On the last tour that I did , which was 2018 , November , something like that , we decided to do something I always wanted to do which was open for ourselves as an acoustic band and play Saga acoustically . But don ’ t tell the audience . If you bought a ticket for that tour , you weren ’ t aware there was any opening act . Right now , when the show started , this band was being announced and half the room was empty , because nobody was showing up for the opening act . We walked out with no lighting , just white lights and actually started off with Jim Gilmore and Mike Sadler coming out and playing the beginning of “ Images ” by themselves . So as the thing started , I could see people weren ’ t even sure what they were watching . And then when the rest of us showed up , he could see the whole audience go that ’ s the band and what ’ s going on here . And then we did about a 45 minute acoustic set as an opening act . Michael , most nights would thank Saga for letting us open for them and say things like , It ’ s a really nice band except the singer ’ s really an asshole . It was pretty funny because we ’ re constantly thanking Saga for letting us open for them , and we just did an acoustic set which was a lot of fun to do . The record company saw it , really liked it , and asked us if we ’ d make an acoustic record . So we ’ ve had those arrangements and I ’ ve done some other arrangements that we didn ’ t do on that tour , and all those arrangements kind of turned into this record .
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Photo Credit : Saga Social Media
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