Overtime, Extra Innings, or Encores, it is all just borrowed time until a conclusion is reached, and that is where we find ourselves with Rich Aucoin’s “Parachute Era”, at its end. Its demise was well advertised late in 2024, when it was slated to be packed up for one last time, and never to be unfurled again, but it managed to eke out a few more months, making appearances at Gus’s Pub, and most recently at the Shore Club in Hubbards for one more summer send-off.
There is little else that compares to a Rich Aucoin show, as it is an energetically chaotic affair, where Rich will spend as much time frolicking amongst the patrons, as he does sweating up on stage. It’s a show that is part aerobics class, part rave, and once it gets going it never slows down. In the past there has been confetti, streamers, an inflatable coffin and balloons, on this night it was just Rich, his bandmates (Nathan Pilon, Joel Waddell, and Terror Pigeon) and a Parachute.
It was a magical night out in Hubbards, as most Rich Aucoin shows are, but this one had a sense of finality about it, like this was the actual end of the Parachute era. In talking to Rich a couple weeks removed from the Shore Club show, he indeed confirmed that there was only a couple of shows left before he turns the page on this chapter of his career. There are people who pay good money to chase a communal high as good as the post-Aucoin show bliss, and rumor has it that the Parachute will be unfurled once again over in PEI as part of the Sommo Festival. We’ll see you over on the island.
