Jacob Deraps earned his EVH endorsement the way most guitarists only imagine: by learning to play Van Halen with enough conviction that The Official Van Halen News Desk took public notice. The band’s VIVA ROCK N’ ROLL TOUR makes its Cornwall stop at The Port Theatre on Tuesday, October 20 — a 6:00 p.m. show that lands near the end of a fall run through the U.S. Midwest and Ontario, and close enough to Jacob Deraps’ home province of Quebec to read as something like a regional arrival.
About the Show
Deraps is a two-piece built on an unlikely transatlantic partnership: Jacob Deraps handles guitar, bass, and vocals from Quebec; Josh Gallagher contributes drums and vocal arrangements from Australia. The collaboration started through YouTube Van Halen covers and has since produced two albums on Metalville Records, with publishing through Anthem Entertainment — the company that handles Rush’s catalog. Their 2022 self-titled debut earned “Best New Band of 2022” recognition from Japan’s Burrn! Magazine, and their track “My Side of Town” appeared on Classic Rock Magazine’s Ultimate Playlist of the same year.
The sophomore album, Viva Rock N’ Roll (released May 23, 2025), went to No. 1 on Japanese rock sales charts and has drawn sustained comparisons to early Van Halen from press across three continents. SleazeRoxx called them “the hottest new band to come out of Canada” in 2023. The band has opened for Tom Cochrane, Ann Wilson, Loverboy, and Foreigner, and performed at Stonedead Festival supporting Blue Öyster Cult. Jacob Deraps is also a winner of the Zappa Foundation Award and has shared the stage with Steve Lukather of Toto and Dweezil Zappa.
The Port Theatre show promises “an evening of high-energy rock ‘n’ roll, featuring the best of our first two albums, killer classic-rock covers, and a big tribute to the greatest of all time—Eddie Van Halen.” This Cornwall date follows Oshawa (Oct. 18) in a fall leg that ran through Sharkey’s in Syracuse, the Token Lounge in Detroit, Reggie’s in Chicago, and Shank Hall in Milwaukee before heading back into Canada.
Venue & Logistics
The Port Theatre sits at 132 Montreal Road in Cornwall, Ontario, a theater-format room in the North Country corridor along the Ontario-Quebec border. For a band whose guitarist grew up in Quebec with Van Halen and AC/DC as his primary obsessions, Cornwall is about as close to home turf as this fall tour gets. Show runs 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Tickets
No ticket price was available from sources at the time of publication. Buy tickets