HELIX mainman Brian Vollmer looks back at 2008:

"What a great year it was! We began the year still working the Power Of Rock And Roll CD. I was coaching Rudy Blair of 680 news for the media portion of Canadian Idol and he won! Rudy gave his prize of $1,000 to the Alzheimer’s Society. Congrats Rudy. (*Editor’s note: Rudy was featured in Homes and Condominiums in The Toronto Sun on Saturday January 4th). We played a sold out show in our hometown of London, Ontario to start off the year-a good omen. A sad gig was our only time playing at Healey’s in Toronto, only to find out the next day that Jeff had passed away on the same evening. He will be missed. In the spring then in July we played South Texas Rock Festival in San Antonio, Texas. Tom Mathers met us at the airport and took us to several record in-stores that he had set up. 30,000 rabid fans attended the festival that weekend in 100-120 degree heat. It was the hottest gig we ever played! Returning to Canada we played several northern Ontario runs and played in the following cities: Thunder Bay, Geraldton, (with April Wine), North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, before heading to eastern Canada. The highlight of the tour for me was going to do an on-location interview with Fred FM in Fredericton. It was at the local Dairy Queen. The premier of the province, Sean Graham, happened to be there as well and we ended up singing 'Rock You' together. Well, almost. We returned home to Ontario and two days later commenced recording on A Heavy Mental Christmas, which was released only a month and a half later in all Wal-Mart stores across Canada on the GBS label, distributed by Fontana/Universal. In October I was flown to Halifax, Nova Scotia to play a bit part in the new Trailer Park Boys movie. Alex Lifeson (RUSH) was there as well and we all had a blast. Truly a memory I will never forget. We finished off our year with a 13-date tour of western Canada which began in Kenora, Ontario and wove it’s way out to Victoria on Vancouver Island and then back east through the Rocky Mountains, ending November 30th in Calgary, Alberta. A week later we ended our year the exact same way we began-with a sold out show at Norma Jeans in our hometown of London."