Legendary Canadian rock band 54-40 are once again keeping busy this summer after a brief hiatus.
The band has released a previously unavailable track called Travel With Jack along with packed summer tour that carries them clear across the country.
The Vancouver area mainstays have also teamed with Four Winds Brewing and Barnside Brewing to create Ocean Pearl, a West Coast lager named for one of their most loved songs.
For 54-40, the moment sits naturally within one of the great enduring stories in Canadian music.
Founders Neil Osborne and Brad Merritt met as high school friends in Tsawwassen and have stood side by side ever since, building the band out of the early eighties Vancouver underground and playing their first show in December 1980.
With drummer Matt Johnson anchoring the group for roughly four decades and guitarist Dave Genn rounding out the lineup, they have spent a career crafting the melodic, introspective rock that became a defining strand of the Canadian sound.
Their deep catalogue of music, from Ocean Pearl and I Go Blind to Since When, One Day in Your Life and She La, has kept them a fixture on Canadian radio and stages for more than forty years.
Their most recent album ‘PORTO’, recorded in Portugal with longtime producer Warne Livesey and released in January 2026, reaffirmed a creative vitality that shows no signs of slowing.
Now the band is bringing that energy to a summer and fall of touring that spans the country.
54-40 will be making stops in Alberta July 24 in Taber and on July 25 in Edmonton as part of Taste of Edmonton.
Darrell spoke with guitarist Dave Genn about the busy summer for the band, their new album and their upcoming shows in Alberta.
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