He’s been throwing down since before college. Now at 35, Canadian-born country singer Tim Hicks has his own College Throwdown tour.
“I started playing bars in my mid-teens,” said Hicks in an interview with the Times before the show.
“One of the first gigs I ever did, the bar owner made me stand out on the sidewalk on the breaks, because I was way too young to be there.”
Hicks rolled into the Algonquin Commons Theatre on March 12 to play a fiery set of, as he calls it, “southern Ontario rock.”
Although he’s known for charting singles like his debut Get By, released in 2012, and Here Comes The Thunder, taken from last year’s 5:01 album, his most recognizable song is likely Stronger Beer.
“I’ve become sort of the Stronger Beer guy,” said Hicks.
“It was meant as a joke.”
The track, now at well over a million combined plays on YouTube, is a contrasting list of different symbols that Canadians and Americans claim as their own.
“You’ve got a stronger army down there, but man up here? We got stronger beer.”
The song was born after the singer went to get a package of Smarties from a convenience store, only to realize that, being in Nashville, the nearest bag was 500 miles away.
Part of the joke is that if you’re looking for Smarties in Nashville, you can just pick up some M&Ms instead.
And the beer?
“There really is no difference between the alcohol content, it just makes for a funny little song,” he said.
That didn’t stop the audience from singing along to every line of Stronger Beer with pride.
Aviation management student Justin Gravel said it’s his favourite song of Hicks’.
“It’s purely Canadian,” said Gravel.
Openers and Ottawa natives River Town Saints, formerly known as Labelle, had the crowd hootin’ and hollerin’ by 8:30.
Audience member Kolby Lydon, decked out in a plaid shirt and jeans, hadn’t previously heard of River Town Saints.
“The music he came out with was unreal,” said Lydon, referring to frontman Chris Labelle.
The singer had a habit of lifting his shirt just enough to get a rise out of the crowd.
Hicks got his goof on later in the show, pretending his jeans were too tight and using that as an excuse to shake his butt.
“I don’t take myself very seriously and I wear that like a badge,” he said.
“If you’re not laughing and having a good time, especially at yourself, why are you even doing this?”