Busy Victoria retro band lineup includes father-son combo
It only makes sense that Dan Politano’s music has come full circle.
His earliest memory of music was being given a Meet the Beatles! cassette at age 6.
“They’re the ones that made me first want to start playing,” he says.
At 9, he received his first guitar (and Beatles chord book) as a Christmas gift and learned how to play. Now 31, Politano plays in a ’60s cover band, performing the music that made his idols household names that decade.
“We play all the good rock hits from the ’60s,” he says of Victoria-based Younger Than Yesterday. “The Beatles, and (Rolling) Stones, and The Monkees, and The Kinks, The Animals.”
Music is in Politano’s blood. His dad, Bryan, was the lead singer with B.C. nightclub staple Roxxlyde, as well as a number of other bands in the ’70s. Still active on the local music scene, Bryan is lead singer with Younger Than Yesterday, as well as That ’70s Band.
“I remember right before our first show, we were in the back room getting changed and he looks at me and says, ‘When we’re in the band, I’m not you’re dad, I’m just a band member,” Dan recalls.
Younger Than Yesterday has played dozens of shows in the past three years. The band will soon play its 100th gig, May 21 at Bartholomew’s Bar and Grille, in the Executive House Hotel.
Founding member Dan says it’s been a very quick trip from the days when he was scouring the Internet looking for fellow musicians to start a British invasion band.
“We quickly realized there are so many other good ’60s bands, good American bands, not just British,” he says. “That’s how we got to where we are today.”
The five-member band, which also includes Dean Gibbs, Russ Allert and Josh Weed, takes covering other artists’ material seriously.
Their repertoire includes more than 50 of the best songs of the decade, and the members all play the part to a tee (wearing mop-tops and the appropriate clothes).
“We have so much fun,” Dan says. “We really put on a good, fun show.”
Younger Than Yesterday is at the Army/Navy club in Sidney on Friday (April 22) at 7 p.m., and on Saturday they’ll be at My Bar and Grill on Gorge Road, starting at 8:30 p.m.
kslavin@saanichnews.com