Indian City returning to the stage following death of Vince Fontaine

The Canadian folk-rock band Indian City is making its return to the stage following the death of band member Vince Fontaine in January.

Lawrence “Spatch” Mulhall, Indian City’s bass player, said Fontaine’s death is still a shock.

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not reaching to the phone to call Vince or looking for his direction musically, things like that,” he said in an interview on Monday.

“It’s still hard to believe that it’s happened.”

Mulhall, who was friends with Fontaine for over 20 years, said Fontaine was passionate about his Indigenous heritage and wanted to tell the stories of Indigenous history through his songs and performances.

He said Fontaine was a trailblazer.

“I was lucky enough that he asked me to come along on this journey with him for the last 20 years,” Mulhall said.

“We had the pleasure, between Eagle & Hawk and Indian City, we got to tour Europe 12 times. We received over, I think, 70 nominations and maybe 35 music awards, with of course multiple Juno nominations, and we were actually luck enough to win one.”

Indian City released a new album in 2021 called ‘Code Red,’ which took about a year to create. It features different styles of music and a number of different artists.

“We have a lot of hopes for this record. It’s such a good record,” Mulhall said, noting that Fontaine was “extremely excited” about the record as well.

Indian City will be performing on Tuesday at 2 p.m. at the Rady JCC in Winnipeg.

- With files from CTV Rachel Lagace.