THUNDER BAY – Alfred Mills loves sharing his music.
Recently he's gotten to perform in front of a much larger audience than usual.
Locked into self-isolation because of a COVID-19 outbreak at Lac Des Iles Mine, he and a growing number of musically inclined colleagues have taken to Facebook and Zoom to perform a series of jam-style concerts to help boost the spirits of their mine co-workers.
Mills said one of his co-workers sent out a song, dedicated to mine employees who were either sent home or stayed on site at Lac Des Iles, after the virus made the rounds, infecting at least 20 employees.
The idea caught on, and with the help of company officials, the concerts have become a regular distraction for both the musicians and their audience during the self-isolation period.
“We've done a couple of concerts where they opened it up, gave people the information how to join up and we get on there and play a bit of guitar,” Mills said.
“Each one of us takes a turn, whomever wants to play a song and we have a little interaction and get some positivity and give everybody a smile.”
Mills said it's imporant to help keep the morale up for employees, most of whom are going to be off the job indefinitely, with parent company Impala Canada keeping a skeleton crew on site temporarily following the outbreak.
“I started this with my family prior to all of this, sending a message out to my family. It's the same thing at the mine. It is a family. We're just sending the message out there that let's just stay together, put some smiles on some faces and some positivity – make some people feel positive and that there is a better side to everything,” he said.
The songs being played during the virtual concerts, which are expected to come to a close on Sunday as the self-isolation period ends for most mine employees, are up to the individual musicians.
It runs the gamut of musical tastes, Mills said.
“We never really discussed it. We just threw it open and asked, 'Who's got a song?' There were a couple of requests, which was kind of cool, and a couple of us learned some new songs to play,” Mills said.
“Myself, I did Darius Rucker's Wagon Wheel and some old country ... a Hank Thompson song that my dad used to play when I was a kid, just stuff that I had listened to over the years.”
There was even a stripped down version of Aqua's '90s classic Barbie Girl, which proved to be a favourite.
“It was quite interesting,” said Morgan Murphy, an Impala Canada spokeswoman who helped with the technical side of setting the concerts up.
“Ain't No Sunshine was a popular song.”
“That one has a twist to it, but it's an awesome version,” Mills chimed in.
The ongoing exercise has also been a way for co-workers to learn a little bit more about each other, or be introduced to new people.
Mills said a group of mine workers routinely jam in a common room for anyone who wants to listen, something they've been doing for more than a decade.
It's something he could see growing in popularity once the mine is back to full operation.
But that's about as far as it's probably going to go, Mills joked.
“I'm not quitting my day job.”