After a battle with cancer, musical duo reunite on stage for an evening of songs and stories | CBC News

After an unplanned year-long hiatus from the stage, a Newfoundland and Labrador musical duo are back performing together, as one of them celebrates survival.

It was August of 2023 the last time Dave Penny and his musical partner Daunt Lee performed together. Two weeks later Penny found out he was very ill with angioimmunoblastic T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Which had my body thrown out of whack and then COVID put me into the ICU. And then the year just sort of went: chemotherapy, stem cell transplant, all that stuff to get well again — which worked,” Penny told CBC News.

The pair are reuniting on stage on Nov. 7 at Bannerman Brewing Co. where they will tell stories and perform music on accordion and mandolin for what they are billing as a comeback special.

“We’ve got a couple of feature special guests that we won’t talk about because they are, you know, surprised guests. A bunch of silly songs, a couple of serious songs, a Dave and Daunt show,” said Penny, who is now in remission.

While he was in hospital people were messaging him to ask if he was going to do any performances based on his illnesses and he said at the time, he wasn’t sure because it wasn’t a positive theme.

“I was walking the dog one day and I was scuffing my feet around. He was looking for a ball — I remember distinctly, a line popped into my head. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll be darned — it can be a funny topic!”

One of his new recitations, called Out of Order, is based on his medical experience.

“Turns out there is a comical angle to even something as serious as this.”

A hard year

Lee said after Penny was diagnosed, they took a hiatus on performing together on stage but said they have played together in that time period.

“He was immunocompromised for much of last year and continues to be somewhat. So we don’t go out in public,” said Lee.

“The band is two of us, so it’s a lot easier to keep it together than a nine piece reggae band, for example.”

It was hard to see his friend go through his diagnosis and treatment, said Lee, adding around the same time another friend and fellow musician Mark Bragg had a life-altering brain bleed.

“But we just waited it out. Mark’s doing much better, Dave’s doing much better and I’m pleased as punch to know it.”

Both Lee and Penny said the health crisis has given them both a new perspective on life and what really matters.

“It put into perspective what really mattered and any kind of troubles or difficulties that I had through last year — which would have normally quite gotten under my skin — brush them all off easy because there’s way harder things that some people are dealing with,” said Lee.

Penny agreed with Lee, adding it’s helped him keep some challenges that happen in perspective.

“Like we had vicious rain last night. If my roof was leaking, I would have went mad, you know what I mean?”

“That’s the new sort of mantra that I try to have, you know, not to worry about things like leaky roofs,” he said. “And just concentrate on your health and the more important things.”

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