Rich Aucoin is packing up his parachute for the last time.
After more than 15 years, his current New Nostalgia: Penultimate Tour marks the final run of club shows for the Halifax musician's famous interactive live show.
"Ten years ago, I already had in my mind that I wouldn't do this past 40," he tells Exclaim! "The show has a youthful energy that, after a while, would start to dwindle. I want the show to be remembered as everyone giving it [their all]."
Marked by memes, confetti guns, group sing-alongs and, yes, dancing underneath a giant parachute, the show is an emotionally cathartic experience. But it can also be physically draining. "It's definitely harder to do the parachute show," he admits. "There's a lot of shows where I'm destroyed after. I'm trying to do a better job of listening to my body and not just going so hard [that] at the end I'm on the ground pouring water on my body."
Throughout its run, the show was in a constant state of reinvention steadily built up as Aucoin grew the size of his audience; he estimates he's performed to over 100,000 people over the years. Some ideas, like touring across both Canada and the United States by bike, were brought to life. Others, like beginning the show by revealing that he's been standing amongst his fans in the crowd the whole time, were not. "I think would be such a cool move, but that idea only makes sense if you are famous enough," he says. "Anyone who's more famous than me, take that idea for free."
The decision to step back the intensity of his performances coincides with a transition away from making traditional indie rock and pop songs to instrumental electronic music. On his first four albums, which often doubled as alternative soundtracks to existing films, Aucoin used the interstitial moments between his big electro-pop anthems to indulge this long-running interest. Now he's moved that to the forefront, netting JUNO nominations for the first two installments of his Synthetic series of records — Season 3 is due November 20 — in the process. "It is kind of crazy to be in it for 16 years and get no JUNO acknowledgement, and then back-to-back for these two records."
To ease the transition, Aucoin is essentially opening for himself on his current tour, performing a set of instrumental music before the regular parachute party. "In some way, I think I have to make a whole new audience," he reflects. But early shows on the tour suggest that there is also a Venn diagram of his fans, some of whom are willing to make the transition with him.
To be sure, the switch hasn't blunted Aucoin's ambitions. He hopes to one day move his live appearances to movie theatres. "I make a film, and I'm sitting in the corner with a couple synthesizers and maybe singing some songs," he muses. "We've all been jumping around — we deserve a sit."
It's an idea reminiscent of his earliest shows where he performed his debut EP, Personal Publication, next to Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was projected on a sheet hung from the rafters of the small clubs he was playing.
Along with a desire to write actual films scores (rather than making alternative scores for already-existing movies), he's also bursting with ideas for future records. "I have a list of like a dozen more records that I want to make, and kind of move around genre," he says. "I'm hoping by the end of my career to have made a record in every genre."
Originally, Aucoin intended to keep on unfurling the parachute for another year, but with the costs of touring creeping ever higher and ticket sales slower than they once were, he decided that, save for a handful of festival appearances next summer, this is it. Many of the signature items from the show, including the parachute, are currently included as pre-order exclusives for Synthetic: Season 3.
"As soon as I fully was like, 'This is it,' some crazy weight came off my shoulders," he admits. "I'm really enjoying it right now, because I know it's not like 'David After Dentist,' like, 'Is this is gonna be like this forever?' No, it's gonna wear off. Don't worry."