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The grateful

Rediscover greatness of local legends The Hairfarmers at customer appreciation day
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Saturday, Sept. 9, 11-4, Hairfarmers entertain at Nesters. Photo by Nicole Fitzgerald

What: Nesters Market Customer Appreciation Day

Who: The Hairfarmers

When: Saturday, Sept. 9, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Where: Nesters Market

Admission: Free

Wandering from the Whistler Farmers’ Market Sunday afternoon, Grateful Greg and Guitar Doug were found chuckling over their instruments on the patio at Merlin’s — not an unusual sight among these parts. New York has the Statue of Liberty. In Whistler, it’s the Hairfarmers.

The boys invited a “Whistler virgin,” a young girl vacationing with her family for the first time in Whistler, to request a song.

“Any song,” Grateful Greg, more uncommonly known as Greg Reamsbottom, encouraged.

With year-round shows, sometimes two to three a day, the duo knows a few ditties and if they don’t, they’ll stumble through a verse anyways if the requester starts them off.

“Stairway to Heaven,” the girl shouts out.

“Noooo,” you can almost hear their inner musicians screaming out.

Grateful Greg drops his head in disbelief. Greg’s other half, Guitar Doug, even less commonly known as Doug Craig, flashes a smile, one that used to grace the pages of Armani ads, before chuckling at Greg’s terror.

For the past five months, the Hairfarmers took a vow of fruit juice smoothies, locking up the liquor cabinet to give their après saturated livers a much-needed summer vacation after a decade of boozing music around the Whistler music circuit and other parts of the world.

However, the night before the Merlin’s patio show, the two performed at a party where the standard music contract was drawn up before their healthy-living vows struck.

The contract was standard Hairfarmers fare: x amount of dollars along with a bottle of vodka, a bottle of Sambuca as well as a six-pack of Red Bull.

“We didn’t want to insult them,” Grateful Greg jokes of falling off the wagon.

Hung over and all, the two double Gs lit into Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. The difference between a pro and amateur was evident. The two roles may not differentiate themselves in talent, but only the professional knows how to navigate the voice through long runs and, in this case, a long night of drinking.

Further strengthened from Grateful Greg’s time fronting the Zeppelin tribute band A Whole Lotta Led, the man who has never taken a singing lesson in his life, let alone knows the type of voice quality he has, soars through the high-noted ballad that goes on, and on, and on — all 14-plus minutes of it — and the crowd loves it, applauds in awe of it. Such a sound from someone Greg jokes is beer salesmen.

While the two ponytails’ musicianship is outstanding, it is the chemistry between these two friends that raises the duo beyond the common cover band.

The entertainment of the two finishing each other’s sentences and jokes is what keeps tourists searching out the infamous duo on a return trip to Whistler. It keeps locals coming back to a constantly morphing show, even if it takes a farmers’ market pass by to appreciate their talents once again. It was like seeing Whistler Mountain cloaked in alpenglow for the first time again. It’s always there in the winter, but sometimes as residents we forget to stop and drink it all in.

So how do you figure out the value of their show?

On one hand tickets are a $10 beer jug at Merlin’s and other local haunts around town. On the other, the Hairfarmers are first-class tickets to New York where the two were flown to perform at an exclusive party in the Hamptons. Jet-setting invites are nothing new for the two who were flown to London to perform at an air force base then in the next breath are shuttled to Mission Hill in Kelowna for a wedding. Weddings are the only time, the two break the no-set-list rule — first dance gets special privileges. Next month the Hairfarmers focus on shows around the Vancouver music scene.

“Before we did a lot of local shows, but now we are doing bigger shows with more travel and production,” Greg says. “It’s taking on a whole other dimension.”

The two first found each other at a wedding in Birkenhead Lake in 1997. Doug attended with musician Mike from the Dank Nuggs and Greg with musician G Willy, but when the hairy boys finally jammed together, it was musical love at first sight, although you would never know it almost a decade later. The two are truly an old married couple, brothers supporting and taunting each other. Just watch one of their shows to hear their story. It’s there in between songs, Harley Davidson rides and their love of long hair.

“We have a psychic radar on when we perform,” Greg says. “Our job is pretty much casting a spell for a living — what good music should do. It flashes you back to a memory or a place… It puts you in a trance where you are pulled right into the moment — that is usually where the cool stuff happens.”

And how does the former truck driver, now full-time musician, feel about living where the cool stuff happens?

“Everyday I am thankful,” he says, cheekily adding, “I guess you could say I am grateful.”