Vancouver Sun:

It’s the end of an era stretching back three decades and 45 Commodore Ballroom appearances: Spirit of the West is playing its final three shows at the Vancouver landmark Thursday through Saturday.

The band, formed in 1983 by John Mann, Geoffrey Kelly and J. Knutson, has gone through many members over the years and faced its share of hardships but kept at it and became one of Canada’s favourite Celtic-tinged rock acts.

Spirit of the West was/is one of my favorite bands. I saw them often when I was in college here in Vancouver and they were very approachable, often sitting with us after gigs and chatting. The song, “The Crawl”, was seen as a challenge to us college boys. We wanted to hit all the pubs in the song in one evening. We tried many times but my friends didn’t have my Nova Scotia stamina for heavy drinking. And check out one of their most well known songs, “Home for a Rest”. Very sad to hear of their myriad of health issues and even sadder I won’t get to see them one last time.