Victim of a Harlequin Song

Yikes!

Yes, this is how most rock bands looked back in the 70's. Pretty, huh? Maybe not. Especially the Canadian quintet Harlequin, who I had the good fortune to enjoy at a live performance onstage in my high school auditorium. Harlequin played a brand of hard rock that has remained rather timeless, at least to my supposedly sophisticated musical tastes. The band could get heavy and whip up a party mood (Love on the Rocks), yet they could turn on a dime and weave a dark and atmospheric composition (Superstitious Feeling). All with a sophisticated flair and sound. They were, after all, produced by Jack Douglas, who also worked with big names like Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, and Blue Öyster Cult.

I'm hazy as to the details of this gig... it was a hell of a long time ago... but I believe it was in 1982 and I definitely remember loving the music. Love Crimes, Harlequin's second album, was already secure on the charts, and the follow-up One False Move was either imminent or fresh on store shelves. This was among my first ever "concerts", and my first exposure to Harlequin; I was totally on board after the show. Later, I was able to identify their hit songs as they reeled out of the FM radio speakers in the family room, courtesy of the mighty Q107 (whose Toronto signal carried strong and clear all the way to my hometown up in cottage country). Not exactly flush with money, I opted to record a lot of that music off the radio rather than buy a lot of vinyl. That horde of cassette tapes survived for a few decades, but I eventually ditched them, fearing that to attempt to play the tapes would merely shred them to pieces. 

If you can believe it, I actually still have the ticket stub from that high school concert... and a Harlequin guitar pick which was thrown into the audience - and caught by yours truly, both pictured below.

I'm happy to say that I still get a blast listening to Harlequin's greatest hits. So much nostalgia of such an innocent time in my life - early high school. Their smash hit Innocence, still a staple on Canadian rock radio stations, continues to speak to me both melodically and lyrically. That blend of searing guitars and swelling synthesizers holds up amazingly well after all these years. 

Take your pick....