SPILL LIVE REVIEW: CANADIAN SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME 2025 LEGENDS INDUCTION CEREMONY @ LYRIC THEATRE, MERIDIAN ARTS CENTRE, TORONTO

CANADIAN SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME 2025 LEGENDS INDUCTION CEREMONY

@ LYRIC THEATRE, MERIDIAN ARTS CENTRE, TORONTO

OCTOBER 17, 2025

The air at Meridian Arts Centre was full of excitement as the community known as the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame for 2025 gathered to induct its 2025 nominees. A sense of community was in the gleam of every eye, whether it be the inductees, or their peers inducting them, or the scores of talent celebrating their contributions, or the droves of fellow industry members there to lend a hand of gratitude.

Ed Robertson, there to induct Andy Kim, can’t contain himself to declare how inductee Jane Siberry is one of the best shows he’s seen in his life. “It was the Bound by the Beauty Tour at Massey Hall,” the Barenaked Ladies singer gushes, “it was a trio show. It was her, Ken Meyer on guitar, and Teddy Boer, Wicky, on piano.” That excitement jumps from Triumph, “with the Payolas opening at Maple Leaf Gardens,” to Kim himself, whom Robertson (and Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Dean) regaled with a story while inducting the man behind “Rock Me Gently” and “Sugar Sugar,” one that goes back to 1995 when Barenaked Ladies shared the stage with a slightly nervous Kim, who was poised to perform “Rock Me Gently” for a show at the then-Ontario Place Forum.

“Right before we go out on stage,” Robertson says, “He goes ‘Ed, I need to talk to you.’ And I go, what do you need? [Kim adds] Do I do sunglasses on? Or sunglasses on my head? Or do I go ahead and do sunglasses on? And then when I start singing, move them to the top of my head?’” An age-old question. “I go, well, I think you’ve got to go with that. He goes, ‘I thought so.”

That air of community prevailed throughout the night, from fellow inductees Ian Thomas, and Triumph’s Rik Emmett reuniting with Lou Pomanti to do Thomas’s “Right Before Your Eyes,” first onscreen in 1988 on In Session, then nearly 40 years on in front of our eyes. Or Thomas himself, in all his Viking legend glory (a title he gave himself in relation to the throwing around of the term “legend” itself). Or Jane Siberry’s impromptu acceptance speech, erroneously assuming inductor and collaborator k.d. lang called her a “nationalist.” “I didn’t say that,” lang interjected, laughing, “I said that the Jean Béliveau line was something cultural,” a reference to the couplet “This stick was signed by Jean Béliveau/So don’t fuckin’ tell me where to fuckin‘ go” in the Bound by the Beauty track, “Hockey.”

Or it was the series of video tributes – Gino Vannelli by Burton Cummings, Michael Bublé and Herb Alpert; Triumph by Sebastian Bach, Kiefer Sutherland, and longtime friend Alex Lifeson; Nile Rodgers and Bryan Adams with an endless group of compliments for Andy Kim; Peter Gabriel celebrating the unfading unique voice of Siberry, and comedy legend Dave Thomas dropping in for Ian Thomas.

The showmanship and talent that gave us “Wild Horses” and “I Just Wanna Stop” were still there, as were laughs for his ex-girlfriend’s dad, who back in the early 70s jabbed a finger to his “People Gotta Move” dance moves, with a gruff “dump that guy.” Alfie Zappacosta gave voice to an energetic cover of “Move” alongside inductor, music luminary Frank Davies, to bring Vannelli into the Hall of Fame fold. The crowd did move, and certainly did groove. Or Tom Cochrane’s appearance to bring the Triumph trio to the fold, followed by Emmett and Bon Jovi’s Phil X’s ever energetic take on “Lay it on the Line,” light show effects, blaring Triumph sign and all.

That adoration was on full display. From Kirk Diamond and Kairo McLean’s reggae-infused cover of the Kim-written “Sugar Sugar,” the one once serenaded by The Archies back in 1969, and by everyone from Bob Marley to Gladys Knight to Charlie Edward and JJ Wilde being handpicked to break a sweat on Triumph’s “Magic Power.” But at times it’s a windowpane. A world of the past, stories about another night with Murray McLaughlin at Cochrane’s house for dinner, the former there to induct his compatriot, Ian Thomas. “He might be better described as 25 chords,” McLaughlin adds, “and ‘where the hell is he going with this?’”

“It’s about room to grow and explore,” says Noah Derksen, who got the crowd on its feet for Thomas’s “Painted Ladies” with Sam Drysdale, a song anybody can name from its opening clavs, and for being, according to Thomas, about “strippers and blow.” “There’s just so much more room to grow and to explore and to talk philosophy about songwriting.”

Housewife covered Siberry’s “Mimi on the Beach”, while Chantal Kreviazuk sat by the piano for “Calling All Angels”. “It’s a daunting task to cover a Jane Siberry song,” Krevaziuk admitted, “but I’m dialed.”

Drysdale meanwhile looks back on Thomas as a style to forever emulate. “I was just talking about his vocal stacks,” he tells, “how organic everything sounds. And that to me is a timeline that we can always go back to. Because of how timeless it is and because of how organic it is.”

Below the burgeoning lights that swung around the crowded theatre, as story after story was told, as tears were shed and thanks were given, it was community, one that gives its own sons and daughters, or to put in Siberry’s words, sisters and brothers, in no order, a voice and an invitation.

(Photography by Andrew James)

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