April Wine - Hard Rock Live, Seminole, Hollywood, Florida - 13th April 2026

With Triumph

Review by Robert Corich

There are certain evenings when the supporting act is anything but an afterthought. When April Wine walked onto the stage at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida, on the second date of Triumph’s long-awaited return to the American touring circuit, there was a sense that this was going to be one of those nights.

For those of us who have followed Canadian rock for decades, the pairing made perfect sense. Two bands whose music became part of the fabric of North American rock radio, two catalogues packed with songs that still sound immediately familiar, and two groups whose histories stretch back to a time when the word arena actually meant something in rock music.

April Wine had just forty minutes to make their case.

They needed considerably less.

Opening with “I Like to Rock” was hardly a surprise, but it was exactly the right way to announce their arrival. The song remains one of those beautifully uncomplicated pieces of hard rock that requires no explanation: guitar, bass, drums and attitude, straight down the line. There was no lengthy preamble and no attempt to dress things up. April Wine simply plugged in and rocked.

And then came “You Could’ve Been a Lady”, the old Hot Chocolate song that April Wine turned into such a distinctive hit. It remains a fascinating choice because it demonstrates one of the band’s great strengths: their ability to take material that wasn’t originally theirs and stamp it with an unmistakably April Wine identity.

“Say Hello” and “Oowatanite” kept the momentum firmly in place, the latter reminding everyone just how effectively April Wine could combine melody with the muscularity of hard rock. There is a directness to this material that has aged remarkably well.

“Enough Is Enough” followed, bringing another welcome dose of heavier guitar. Then came perhaps the most telling moment of the set for long-time followers: “Just Between You and Me.”

This is where nostalgia could easily have taken over, but it didn’t need to. The song is simply a superb piece of melodic rock, and hearing it in this setting underlined why April Wine have endured while so many of their contemporaries have disappeared into the history books.

“Sign of the Gypsy Queen” pushed the set back toward the heavier side, before the inevitable closer arrived.

“Roller.”

Of course.

There are songs that belong to bands and songs that almost seem to define them. “Roller” is very much in the latter category. The guitars, the driving rhythm section and that unmistakable chorus provided the perfect full-stop to what was, necessarily, a whistle-stop tour through the April Wine catalogue.

And that, ultimately, was my only real complaint.

Forty minutes is nowhere near enough April Wine.

The setlist was smart, concentrated and remarkably free of padding—eight songs covering several decades of the band’s career. But it also left a tantalising amount of unfinished business. There was no room for the deeper cuts, no opportunity to stretch out, and barely time to settle into the performance before another familiar song was upon us.

Yet perhaps that is also the mark of a good support performance. April Wine left the stage with the audience wanting more.

The current line-up, with longtime guitarist Brian Greenway still providing a direct connection to the band’s history, is fronted by Marc Parent, who took over the vocal role from the late Myles Goodwyn. Parent doesn’t attempt to impersonate the past; instead, he approaches the material with energy and respect, giving these songs their own contemporary life. The current touring line-up also features Richard Lanthier on bass and Roy Nichol on drums.

And Greenway remains a particularly important presence. There is something reassuring about seeing a musician who has been part of the April Wine story for so long standing there with guitar in hand, still delivering the goods. This isn’t a tribute act trading on somebody else’s memories. This is April Wine.

The strange thing about evenings like this is how quickly the decades collapse.

For a brief forty minutes in Hollywood, Florida, the years between the 1970s, 1980s and 2026 seemed rather less important. These were songs built to survive beyond their original moment, and judging by the reaction inside Hard Rock Live, they have done precisely that.

Then the lights went down.

Triumph were waiting.

And April Wine had done exactly what a great opening act should do: they hadn’t merely warmed up the room.

They had reminded everyone why they were there in the first place.