Beach Bash goers can expect some high calibre entertainment this year via the Milkman’s Sons as well as the two opening acts Private Drive and the Rum Runners.
The event, which is put on by Woodlawn Regional Park, takes place at Boundary Dam on July 28 – 29.
Mickey Kupchyk, rhythm guitarist and vocalist for the Milkman’s Sons, said Friday night will be heavily focused on country songs with Private Drive warming up the crowd, and then Saturday will lean more on the rock and roll side, having the Rum Runners amp things up before the headliners take the stage.
“We want the people who are going to come to know they’re going to have fun,” said Kupchyk.
“We’re going to have fun; it’s going to be a big party. That’s what we really want out there, to keep the people entertained and we’re going to play some good dance music for them.”
The Estevan show is one of many the band has booked throughout the summer, with Kupchyk noting the Milkman’s Sons have performances set up every weekend right through to September and beyond.
The band has been honing its show for a few years, added Kupchyk, tightening its performances and finding what songs work in a party setting and which ones fall short in terms of keeping the crowd going.
A point of pride the musicians have added to the sets is a large $35,000 LED screen displayed behind the group while it plays so it can supplement the music with visuals, he said.
“The same thing if you went to see Garth Brooks or Aerosmith, they got them big screens behind them,” said Kupchyk.
“We have the same thing, it’s just not as big; we do a lot of things with it like run videos and different images and stuff like that while the band is performing, so it just adds ore to the whole show — for us it’s all about the show.”
A question that always seems to come up for the Milkman’s Sons is how it got its name, and if Kupchyk can be believed, it is indeed quite the story.
According to the guitarist he had a precognitive dream when he was still a child — which is a dream that ends up coming true — and in that dream a raven to spoke him.
The raven said to Kupchyk, “Your aunt is going to die.”
Understandably, he woke up scared and told his parents what happened.
“They told me not to worry and to go back to sleep,” he said.
“At noon the next day we received a phone call telling us our aunt Emma had died.”
Less than three weeks later Kupchyk was visited by the ominous bird in yet another dream, this time to tell him his father would die the next day.
Unsure what to do he told his brother then the pair approached their father about the raven’s prediction, but their dad once again said not to worry because it’s only a dream
Despite this, he said his father looked shaken from what his sons had just told him.
“All day long our daddy wasn't himself; he kept looking around for something that might fall on his head, because the raven didn't say how it was going to happen, just those words, ‘Your daddy is going to die,’" said Kupchyk.
Their father left home early that morning and was gone much of the day. When he finally returned he looked aweful, Kupchyk added, like he was waiting for the axe to fall all day.
He admitted to their mother that he’d had the worst day of his life.
"‘You think you had a bad day?’ Mom replied, ‘This morning the milkman dropped dead on the front porch!’” Kupchyk said.
“There you have it — the story is out.”
