Rotaryfest 2026 Fallout (Part 3!!)

Proof positive that our news backlog (combined with new stuff) was large: it took almost two weeks for our third Rotaryfest fallout post for 2026! When we last left off with the Sault's summer festival at Clergue Park almost two weeks ago, we had the last four bands on Stage 1 on the Saturday to look for videos of, plus all of the Saturday bands on Stage 2. I couldn't find official or public videos from Just J&M or BookcluB's sets, so we next flash forward to this year's featured Saturday touring headliners, namely London-based Led Zeppelin tribute band Zed, who I found a video of from local professional photography company Soo Lens' Facebook page. Note that the pinned photos at the top of their feed are from last year's Rotaryfest, but I do have to add some videos from here to our backlog. Now, while some of Soo Lens' past concert videos have actual video footage, this is primarily a highlight reel of photos.

The audio is a clip from "Million Cash" by rappers Connor Price & Armani White, albeit slightly pitched up, which may explain why Facebook didn't content match it.  Soo Lens' owner's musical preferences aside, this is a peculiar song choice for a Led Zeppelin video, but you get some really nice photos of singer Shaun Sanders here (albeit not the rest of the band), plus the unique angle of seeing video of their arm holding the camera taking photos mid-set. I wonder if they actually filmed anything substantial with the separate video camera? We'll have more from Soo Lens hopefully soon, but give their compilation of Zed/Shaun photos a look below!

Next up, barring some really belated or well hidden public videos, our Stage 1 videos conclude with Seldom Seen SSM's last video from the festival, which was of closing Saturday band The Sidekicks! As I noted when I rolled them into our full coverage, The Sidekicks are historically cagey when it comes to hinting at what they play in concert (be it live media or hints at their setlist range), but Seldom Seen SSM's administrator had a front row spot on the lawn for their cover of The Tragically Hip's "Little Bones", which singer/drummer Tracey Hilderley noted was "a tribute to a tribute". This is presumably a reference to local Hip tribute band The Luxury, who dropped out of their planned closing set on Rotaryfest Saturday for publically unannounced reasons (hence why The Sidekicks were promoted from the Friday evening lineup). Even without a rhythm guitarist, Tracey, Steve, and Dan had a good handle on this song, and Tracey's vocal range adjusted well!

The big issue with this video is that it's tiny, as Seldom Seen SSM did the thing where a horizontal video is uploaded in vertical dimensions with severe letterboxing, which also affected their video of The Jay Scali Band covering Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" during the Friday Night Blues program on Stage 2. Apologies for missing that two weeks ago, but it's an interesting take that really accentuates the blues part of its name! Just a shame about the rain here, the skies weren't Rotaryfest's friend this year in multiple ways. Give Seldom Seen SSM's Sidekicks video a look below, and click here for photos of the above two bands, Zed, and Mellowship Slinky last month!

We now enter the home stretch of our Rotaryfest 2026 fallout, namely the Second Stage beside the Art Gallery of Algoma! The Reeves and Brendan Hodgson didn't post any public videos from their sets on social media that I know of, but I did find one video of Brendan and his band live, even if they weren't the focus. While their 3:30 PM set was ongoing, Eden Plague drummer Johnny Belanger starred in this vertical update video for the former Bear Hunters' Facebook page, where he noted the uncertainty over if anyone would even be playing that day due to the lingering air quality concerns, but confirmed that they would still be on at 6:30 PM as scheduled, while also showing off the crowd levels at this point in the day. Between Johnny talking and my limited country music knowledge, I couldn't make out what Brendan and the gang were playing, but give this unique teaser a watch below!

While curiously not credited as being filmed at Rotaryfest, local folk singer/guitarist M.D. Dunn did post a video from his set onto his Facebook page, which sees him playing his mid-1990s original "Got War (If You Want It)", which he no doubt dusted off given the political climate. Good energy and strong yet melodic vocals that fans of Mark's will enjoy, so don't bypass this one! We'll close this Rotaryfest fallout post with a video shared to new local blues/hard rock trio Stones & Crows' Facebook page, which captures their jam of the end of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird", which was the outro to their cover of The Steve Miller Band's "The Joker". While this was a combined 9+ minute song, I had to leave during the "Freebird" jam due to juggling seeing a half hour each of all bands on both stages, so does this video show the ending that I missed? Nope, but Spencer & Nicholas are rocking out for all its worth, and you love to see it!

Personally, I'd have filmed more of this jam, even if you still clipped out "The Joker", but a selling point of the 2:28-long video may be the vantage point, as Stones & Crows' camera was mounted on the stage behind an amp, pointed at the audience (and Spencer's back). While you can't see Anthony at all, this angle really shows off the waterfront views that Stage 2 bands in the "Redirected" era have, and luckily, the Saturday bands could enjoy it without severe forest fire smoke or rain getting in the way! Check out Stones & Crows' video from Stage 2 below, and stay tuned for our preview of their late notice (to me) concert on Saturday! 

Barring belated or undiscovered public videos from Stage 1 or early Stage 2, we just have three bands left to address from Rotaryfest 2026 on the Second Stage, so look for all of that hopefully before the month is up, and stay tuned for much more news and notes on the SMS this week! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Nate's Chow), The End Of Piecing It Together Shows, And New Videos!!

A new week doesn't mean we're letting our foot off the gas in terms of getting recent un-talked about stories finally talked about, and today's half Michigan/half Canada post includes recent concert festival fallout, the impending closure of a local concert promotion agency, and leading off in the EUP, a new live cover video and some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for our Yooper readers. Here's what you should know!

Rebranded local hard rock trio Nate's Chow have announced three upcoming concerts for next month, as per this AI-generated poster from their Facebook page last month! After the former Unfortunate Sun and Fake Chow successors returned to the stage at The Islander Bar in Hessel on August 7th, they will be back there for their second show of this era on Saturday, September 5th, so keep this Labour Day weekend gig in mind if you want to see Jody, Brett, and Jason back in the Les Cheneaux Islands area! One week later, the guys will headline the annual Stalwart Agricultural Fair in nearby Goetzville, which the then-Unfortunate Sun played at in 2024 (country rock cover band One Can Short were last year's closing band). Nate's Chow will cap off the festivities on Saturday, September 12th, and this feels in many ways like the EUP answer to this weekend's Laird Fair, so click here for full details on the rural and farm-friendly entertainment then!

Nate's Chow will be playing in the on-site pavilion at 8081 East M-48 in Goetzville, admission is a flat $5 for weekend passes (no single day options), and this is absolutely all ages. Finally for the new shows, the renamed group will play their first Sault Ste. Marie date of this era when they rock The Merchants Bar on Saturday, September 26th, so keep that gig in mind as well if you wanna see how the Skip-less group sound and you'd prefer to do so in the Soo! The Merch show should be at 9:00 PM, the Islander Bar and Stalwart Fair gigs are at 8:00 PM, and the bar shows are both 21+. Visit the above links for more on Nate's Chow's early fall slate of concerts!

Next up, here's a video of Munising classic/hard rock cover quintet The Sky Pilots' headlining concert at The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino on May 30th! The first public video that I've ever seen from one of their local gigs, this 40 seconds-long video features The Sky Pilots covering Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O Mine". While short, it's unique in that frontwoman Melissa Strand (formerly of local bands Swayze Train and Electric Motor Fish) filmed this while singing on stage, letting us see her vantage point of the crowd, the lounge, and her bandmates. Good cover from what we hear, and the video is definitely fun for what it is, so give it a watch!

Now let's head to Sault Ontario, starting with a story that is one of the oldest items in the backlog that I've put off for way too long, as local concert promotion agency Piecing It Together Shows is closing operations later this year. Owner Nicole Dyble revealed the news in a post on their Facebook page on July 12th, where Nicole (who is non-binary) revealed that they are moving to Toronto, and will be commuting between there and here for the rest of the year. As of July 12th, four further P.I.T.S. events were scheduled, including a house party concert headlined by Regina ambient noise group Allinesik the following week, but details on the other three events have yet to be announced. Piecing It Together Shows launched as Dryer Fire in 2018 in the wake of the closure of Nicole's former venue The Gore Street Cafe, and counting the laundromat and their run before changing the company name, Nicole put on over 300 community events, concerts or otherwise, over the past 11 years, while championing local charities and arts initiatives.

Nicole's concerts only occasionally tripped the SMS' genre lines, but they did a lot in the local arts community (music and visual alike) over the past decade, including via such large scale events as the Fishbowl Festival, the It's The Pits festival, and their various long-term residencies at pop-up venues. I still don't know if Nicole ever explained why they went with the peach pit motif for their branding after 2024 or not, but P.I.T.S. had a distinct identity that covered a lot of local ground. We'll let you know if those final three Piecing It Together Shows concerts involve hard rock or punk acts, but best of luck to Nicole in the move and their future plans!

Finally for today, let's look at some fallout from the second annual WestFest at Anna Marinelli Park on August 8th! SooToday's Darren Taylor was on hand for the West Village Revitilization Project's summer festival, covering it in this article with 16 photos of the day's events, the first four featuring opening alt-hard rock band Riverside Stasis.  Good and positive article that outlines some of the vendors and positive thoughts of the day! Mike Blair's 705Live Sound Co. was at the soundboard for WestFest II, and while he did not share a Facebook video from any performers on the company page, he did upload a video of closing local folk supergroup The Ontarians' set to his personal Facebook page that The Ontarians did share publically. WestFest's official recap video features brief clips of both The Ontarians and The Golden Scoundrels' sets, plus lots of looks at the attendees and vendors, but the audio is dubbed over with a Turnstile song.

Odd choice when only Riverside Stasis come anywhere remotely close in genre, and they weren't even in the video, but it's well edited (if vertical). Lastly, 104.3 The Fox posted a video from Ava Nori's set as an Instagram-exclusive video, confirming that she sang with acoustic accompaniment from Scoundrels guitarist Brandon Ruch, who commutes from Southern Ontario for their local gigs. The video shows them covering "Home" by the country singer Brent Morgan, with Ava & Brandon sharing vocals, and she has a distinctive voice that I hope gets more time on stage! Hopefully more WestFest media surfaces, but check everything out at the above links, and stay tuned for more news and notes this week! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Bone Yard 225!!)

Local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard 225 have announced new concerts for September and October, as per their website's calendar, so where will fans be able to see them next? We'll get into their "uncorked" show on Thursday during our next round of concert previews due to the proximity of the event, as the band did not publically confirm their involvement early enough for us to plug it without being considered "short notice". We already knew about their August 29th show at The Water Tower Pub, and we'll address the band playing there on Friday, August 28th in an upcoming post this week if able, given the ongoing backlog clearout here. The first brand new show will be on Friday, September 11th, when your local 225 will kick off the fall season by headlining the annual Bruce Mines Fall Fair (a.k.a. Central Algoma Exhibition)! Technically, this is the first time that we have covered an SMS-amenable band playing at this event.

However, classic/hard rock cover trio The Sidekicks were among the opening bands for last year's Saturday concert headlined by The Luxury. Apologies for missing that, but remember, I didn't know that they leaned towards hard rock last fall. This year, the band aspect of the Fall Fair an hour southeast of the Soo (basically on the edge of our coverage range going east on Highway 17) will allegedly include a Saturday concert again, even though I cannot find public confirmation of who yet, but Bone Yard will be performing right after the annual demolition derby on the opening Friday night program. If you like seeing cars get smashed up, let alone Bone Yard's hard rocking sound, keep this in mind! Bone Yard's concert and the demolition derby will both take place at the Bruce Mines Fairgrounds at Highway 638 in Bruce Mines, and the only start time given is for the derby at 7:00 PM (implying that they'd prefer if you come for that too and stay for the band.)

This is all ages, but there will be a beer garden on-site, and while admission is $10 for a day pass and $25 for the three day festivities (kids 12 and under are free), the concert tickets specifically are $30, but will include admission to the Saturday concert, whoever is playing. Despite the costs, it sounds like a fun day, so visit the above links for more details, including all of the other family activities at the Bruce Mines Fall Fair in four weeks! Two weeks after this trip east, Bone Yard will also hit the highway (albeit just 20 minutes away) to Echo Bay for a special "End Of Summer Bash" at the Elks Lodge #535 there on Saturday, September 26th! While this really isn't summer anymore by then, the southward equinox is earlier that week, so the shoe fits in that way.  We haven't covered an Echo Bay concert on here since Soundcheck played a couple of shows there in 2024, but alas, I missed one.

As it turns out, Soundcheck played at their slo-pitch tournament again on June 27th of this year, as confirmed via this AI-generated poster on the Echo Bay Elks Lodge's Facebook page. It's tougher to catch some Soundcheck bookings when they update their social media so scarcely, but apologies again, and I hope the guys had a good time and crowd in June! I don't know if there's an official reason for Bone Yard 225's booking next month beyond the end of summer, but hopefully they rock the lodge well and have a strong turnout! The Elks Lodge is located at 96 Church Street off of Highway 17B (that's the old highway.) That concert has an 8:00 PM start time, no stated age limit, and an admission fee of $15 (contact the names on the Facebook event page if you want advance tickets). In terms of typical nightclub gigs in the Soo, Bone Yard 225 will play a rare double header weekend at Beck's Bar in early October!

The former will be a regular nighttime show (their first plugged-in public concert in the Soo in two months) on Saturday, October 3rd at 9:00 PM and the latter will be an "uncorked" matinee on Sunday, October 4th at 3:00 PM. Finally, fresh off of their "uncorked" gig at The Water Tower Pub in two weeks, they will return there for another acoustic show on Friday, October 9th, which will take place on the Thanksgiving long weekend. As always, they exclusively play here "uncorked", so keep Greg, Alex, and Warren's softer side in mind for this upcoming one-nighter, which is 19+ at 9:00 PM with no cover. Busy times ahead for Bone Yard 225 as they round out their summer calendar and enter the autumn, so visit the above links for more on the southern fried hard rock action ahead! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Customer Service & Dos Amigos), The Krash Concert Preview, And More!!

Keeping our ongoing efforts to clear this backlog out, here's another news post on this Saturday night, which also finishes up this weekend's hard rock/punk concert previews and looks at some recent assorted updates, but let's kick things off with two LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!

Local acoustic punk cover duo Dos Amigos will return to Thomson Farms Cider & Winery for one night only on Thursday, August 27th! Their second and presumably final show at the 4057 Third Line West farm/winery for the season, and one of a number of Thursday-only musical acts to play there for 2026, this show was first announced earlier this week via this Instagram-only poster for Dos Amigos' late-August dates (we'll address their now-short notice Tap Room gig on Friday when we get to our next weekend concert previews). In fact, the Thomson Farms show will kick off a busy summer-ending weekend for Mikey & Dustin, who will also play previously announced shows at The Whisky Barrel the next day and at the first annual Prince Fest on Saturday the 29th, so if you like the BookcluB sister band's unplugged covers, keep all three shows in mind! As usual, Thomson Farms concerts are on their patio.

It's worth noting too that Dos Amigos members teased in Facebook "Stories" that they played a gig on a Miss Marie Lock Tour boat on August 9th. While live music has been ticking upwards on Miss Marie tours for special events, as best as I can tell from decorations in photos shared in the "Stories", this was a private event. It would be interesting to cover some proper concerts on the Soo Locks tour boats though! The outdoor Thomson Farms show on Thursday the 27th will be at 6:00 PM with no age limit or announced cover charge. Visit the above links for more details!

Next up, here's another newly-announced concert from local promoters Underground Events SSM, this time on Saturday, October 24th at Blaster Powerhouse, as Halifax pop punk/emo quartet Customer Service will make their local debut here that night! A newer alt-rock group with a nostalgic sound for fans of 2000s mainstream emo and punk with some suitable song names to match, hopefully Customer Service pull a solid crowd in two months' time! Local openers will include ska punk quartet ASDP (led by promoter Mikhal "Cha" Muto), hard rock quartet 5 Dollar Bribe (who the Facebook event page describes as "pop? punk" but I wouldn't necessarily agree), and lo-fi/anti-folk singer/guitarist Shae Tull, who will be known on both sides of the border now thanks to her varied regional concert appearances. While the show is a week before Halloween, costumes are encouraged, so keep that angle in mind!

All of the action at the former Soo Blaster has a 7:30 PM door-opening time, advance tickets will cost $20 through the local openers or at The Rad Zone (the door charge will jump to $30), and there is no age limit as usual. Sounds like a fun time for punk fans in particular, and a suitable attraction for the Halloween season to come, so see above for more on this concert!

While we're on the subject re: Underground Events SSM-promoted concerts at Blaster Powerhouse featuring ASDP, there's one taking place TOMORROW NIGHT to cap off this weekend's hard rock concert previews, to be headlined by Saskatoon "D-beat hardcore punk" band Krash! The first band from Saskatchewan that Mikhal has brought in for a concert, Krash's name is apt given their aggressive and raw brand of hardcore punk and noise rock, so they should brutalize Blaster Powerhouse tomorrow! The aforementioned ASDP will be joined as local openers by local death metal quartet Eden Plague, as the former Bear Hunters continue their local resurgence, though they revealed on their Facebook page that this will be their last show of the year before "shifting all gears to our debut LP (as Eden Plague), although we may have something big in October". What do they mean? We'll know soon!

Note that their one new original song is actually named "Primogenesis", not "Primal Genesis" as I heard at Rotaryfest. My bad, but the two sound near identical! Tomorrow's concert (which ASDP may be closing if you believe the band order on the poster) is also all ages, tickets cost just $10 in advance through the local openers and/or The Rad Zone (the door charge jumps to $15), and bands start at 7:00 PM with an expected early ending time given that this is a work/school night. Visit the official Facebook event page for more on what should be an entertaining night out of mixed genre action for metal and punk fans, and here's Krash live!

Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist or event name:

 

• A mystery band named Needhealer have been added to the Viscera-headlined concert at Three One Three On Ashmun this coming Saturday, as per Viscera's Instagram page on Thursday. I can't find anything concrete on who Needhealer are, where they're from, and/or what they play, but unless nothing comes out next week, you can be the first to find out at the former Back Door on Saturday! Stay tuned for more in our next weekend concert previews regardless!
• After holding the successful SOOpfest acoustic charity concert at a private Sault Ontario locale on July 24th, the aforementioned Underground Events SSM are looking into hosting a sequel to that event on Saturday, September 19th, presumably at the same place. Last month's SOOPfest featured an acoustic ASDP set, rappers Fvcksxvad, uncredited guests, and an open mic block. In the event that it has a stated location or an "ask a punk" angle, keep it in mind, especially given the presumably returning charitable aims, and click here to inquire about performing!
• A review of last month's Go North Music Festival in Richards Landing was the lead article in last week's issue of the St. Joseph Island publication Island Clippings, which you can read online at this link. While most fallout from this year touched on the festival in general or the Friday program, Island Clippings' reporter praised Wide Mouth Mason's Saturday co-headlining set for harnessing a high crowd energy. It's a good write up on the biggest points of the Centennial Grounds music festival, so give it a read above!

 

That's all for today, but stay tuned for a single-band post about upcoming concerts from them next! Thanks everyone!

New Original Music & Video Uploads From Tym Morrison!!

It's easy to forget (especially during extremely busy times around the SMS) that local classic/hard rock musician Tym Morrison has original music being recorded and posted to his YouTube channel in between his prolific summer concert schedule. In fact, since we last talked about Tym's new original music in March, he has uploaded sixteen new videos, mostly with new original songs, so let's look at the first ten of them this morning! Just as an advisory note, remember that multiple songs here reflect his Christian faith as well as socio-political issues that, if sufficiently divisive, I won't comment on the lyrics and imagery of (this is not that kind of website). He also does use some AI-generated imagery in the videos, but the music is all originally composed and sung by him.

I won't comment on the AI side of things either, as A. I might misjudge what is AI and what is stock footage, and B. I want to focus on the music, so just a heads up before checking out these videos.

The former Caveman Morrison frontman's oldest of this un-covered batch of songs is "Father In The Sky", a metal song about God that has a good driving riff and melodic softer choruses, and it should please fans of his heavier originals! Next was "Our Evil Ways", which we first heard on Tym's 2006 "Solo Project" CD, where it was one of my favourite songs. Here, it gets a video contextualizing the lyrics around Christianity and modern social and political commentary. "We Will Decide" followed with more classic-inspired metal, and lyrics about how we will decide our future. Tym's existing love ballad "The Reason Why" came next, and in this case, it's double length, with a lyric video of his modern studio recording, followed by him playing the song live in high school in 1992. Tym's voice has held up over the years, as he sounds pretty close to how he does nowadays! Not his heaviest song, but it is still a pretty composition with a good message overall!

The ending caption heavily implies that the second guitarist on the live performance is the late Jeremey Salatuk (later of Wishbone, Lucky 13, and various other groups). Tym stayed in a reflective/romantic mood for his next song/video, "Heart Of Stone", which has a bit of a flamenco touch on some of the guitar work, and while not heavy, fans will appreciate the music (though the vocals are muffled somewhat at points). He returned to topical material next with "9/11", which reflects on the September 11th attacks, and I won't get into the rest of the song/video's viewpoints here (again, not that kind of site). Musically, it's more reserved, slow, and introspective. Things get heavier with "The Evil In Disguise", a hard rocker about what the title suggests, but played with an ominous and darker bent. and I do prefer Tym's metal songs to have more melody than this. Next was "Lay It On The Line", which is an existing original of his and not a Triumph cover.

Lyrically about a failing relationship, this is one of the most accessible songs here for folks who just want a metal/hard rock song without political or religious content, and it's a fun and intense metal track with solid guitar as you'd expect given Tym's skill set! He next posted "Down With The Devil", about a spiritual battle with Satan, and featuring lots of related CGI imagery. Tym's singing is too processed, but the music is sound with a catchy guitar riff and a strong solo! The last of today's videos was a new upload of his original "Suicide Bike Ride", inspired by a real bicycle accident that Tym had in the 1990s, and in this new video version, he adds captions on screen to outline what exactly happened. The text contrast isn't always great, but the context is welcomed, and this is definitely one of Tym's heaviest post-"Solo Project" original songs! Great riff and very pointed singing given that this all happened to him for real, but he will tell the story better than I ever could!

The other six new songs/videos are from the last two weeks, and I hope it will be much sooner to look at those on here as our backlog continues getting cleaned out. Again, I won't comment on what many of these videos touch on in terms of modern social and political issues, but Tym isn't afraid to share what he wants to say. Musically, these show his talents as a composer and singer well, especially when he leans into 1980s-inspired classic metal and hard rock, so give his new songs a listen at the above links, go see him live at Beck's Bar TOMORROW, and because of the rare video of him live in 1992, here's Tym and Jeremey playing "The Reason Why"!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for a new news post later today, including the Krash concert preview! Thanks everyone! 

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Hails), The Full Throttle Saloon's Future, And New Live Videos!!

Here's that second promised news post for your Friday reading, and it features three linked stories that take us from a closing concert venue to one of its last concerts to videos from its opening act, but first, here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for next month!

Less than one week after he promotes the Autopilot-headlined concert at The Art Hub At Spring, Hails frontman & visual artist Brenton Ellis will bring an all-local punk/metal concert to the intimate 504 Queen Street East art gallery on Friday, September 11th! Hails proper will headline the show in the crossover thrash trio's current lineup's Art Hub debut, while former Ha!ls guitarist Mikhal Muto's ska punk quartet ASDP will co-headline the proceedings, and extreme metal quintet (and "Sewer City breakdown kings") With Gunfire will open. Could this be the heaviest Art Hub concert ever? This concert comes as part of Brent's new working relationship with the venue, as along with his two shows, he will be hosting an art exhibit there that premieres on Wednesday, September 2nd. As part of "B.G. Ellis' Audio/Visual Eviscerate", he will be displaying artwork that he has painted since 2019, and concert posters and band merchandise will be exhibited too.

The exhibit's opening night (featuring live music by DJ Seith) coincides with Brent's birthday too, so next month will be big for him! This all isn't a new idea either, as he hosted an exhibition of his art there in March 2023, with a Hails concert taking place at the time as well, but if you've followed Brent's music in the past seven years, you'll know that his distinct art style is a common thread, and it'll be neat to see it all come together like this! As for the concert proper, doors open at 6:00 PM on the 11th, the show will definitely be all ages, and admission will be $10 or "pay what you can". Visit the official Facebook event page for more details!

Next up, here's some surprising news, as The Full Throttle Saloon at 256 Wellington Street West closed today after a nine month run. The former Primavera Hall was rebranded under Rosa Carello's ownership in November of last year, becoming a new host for live cover bands on weekends. as well as hosting three high profile touring tribute band concerts this year, most recently Sandman on July 25th. However, as per this SooToday article by Brandon Walker, the building's owners have opted to sell (click here for details), and with Rosa now unable to lease the space, she has confirmed that "I am temporarily closed until I find a new location". As part of the final events at the Steelton locale, Rosa had hosted a customer appreciation week with drink specials since Tuesday. Time will tell what happens for The Full Throttle Saloon 2.0, but hopefully Rosa lands on her feet somewhere else, and it was good having a new-ish venue for concerts!

The fact that this news comes out less than three weeks after the Sandman concert is unfortunate, but at the same time, they hadn't plugged the show on their Facebook page at all since June despite the show going down as scheduled, so that would (to me) hint that their attention was at least diverted with the closure talks. However, before we say goodbye to 256 Wellington West outright, there are two new videos from the Crazy Babies show there in May that completely passed me by at the time! The Toronto-based Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath tribute band were the first of the three touring tribute bands to rock the Full Throttle Saloon in mid-2026, and local openers Headrush actually posted two videos of their set to their Facebook group. Both filmed by bassist John Amendola, one sees them covering Ozzy's "No More Tears", though the sidestage clip is sadly both 17 seconds long and was shot vertically.

Embedded below is their opening song on this night ("I Don't Know"), which John filmed in full and horizontally! The vocal wear on "No More Tears" was evident at that later stage of the night, but the Crazy Babies deliver the goods for fans of Ozzy's, and they look the part where it counts, even down to the Zakk Wylde bullseye guitar! Of course, this show caught a lot of flack online for its $70 price point and lack of admission at the door, but it did well enough to warrant Rosa bringing in two more tribute bands to the former Primavera while she could, and the crowd looks decent from what is visible! Give John's Crazy Babies videos a watch above & below!

Finally for today, let's stay with Headrush's Facebook group, as they have some new videos there, but not from the Crazy Babies show. This year, they've been going the Silent 9 route by taking the summer off aside from festivals and private events, and in the latter case, they have played at at least two private functions since Rotaryfest. Last week, they headed north of Desbarats for a private party of some type on Diamond Lake, and in John Amendola's batch post of media from the event, there is one brief live video of them covering Foreigner's "Hot Blooded", but it has three big issues: It's vertical, it's only 18 seconds long, and it heavily focuses on partying attendees in the crowd rather than Headrush, though you do see guitarist/keyboardist Frank Mannarino late. Still, it looks like a blast was had by all! The other acknowledged private event since was a wedding concert at The Loft at the Algoma Conservatory of Music earlier this week.

For this private booking, Headrush welcomed a special guest performer on vacation from England, namely saxophonist/keyboardist Piero Tucci. Odd not seeing Frank behind the keys, but Piero knows his way around the sax here! In another batch post from John, he included (thankfully full and horizontal) videos of them covering The Doobie Brothers' "Long Train Runnin'" and, as embedded below, Foreigner's "Urgent". Both covers are strongly done by this veteran group, with John Anderson's vocal range put to good use, and The Loft is a nice upscale downtown venue that is well suited for a wedding event like this, so give Headrush's new videos a watch above and below!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the SMS tomorrow! Thanks everyone! 

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Salem Trials) & Videos From Maddy's Mighty Mutts' Family Fun Day!!

With this being the quietest concert weekend in a month or so, we have some extra time to tick some more items off of our backlog, so here's a new news post on this Friday afternoon, and it includes new videos and related updates from a recent fundraiser event. However, leading off is a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT of a very heavy persuasion for next month!

In the newest concert announcement from local promoters Undergound Events SSM, Ottawa deathcore quintet Salem Trials will make their local debut on Saturday, September 26th at Blaster Powerhouse! A brutal and intense batch of original songs will be in store next month from this very heavy group, who definitely caught my attention from the off, so keep their gig at the former Soo Blaster in mind! Another Ottawa-based quintet (metalcore band The Jenova Projekt) will play Sault Ste. Marie for the first time next month, and while not ad relentless, they have an appealing hard-edged sound that reminds me a bit of Demiricous on some songs, and it will be good to have them on stage here also! Local support will come by way of space/hard rock duo The Spaceship Opening (more on them soon) and sporadically seen party metal trio The Apocalypse Afterparty, featuring promoter Mikhal Muto on bass.

While The A.A. missed out on the most recent rap show at Blaster, this will put them in slightly closer musical range to let their double bassed, guitar-devoid brand of music find a receptive audience! This all ages concert will have doors opening at 8:30 PM, and advance tickets will be on sale soon at The Rad Zone and via the local openers for $25 (the door charge will jump to $30). Sounds like a brutal concert to me, and it trends heavier the longer it goes, so visit the official Facebook event page for more details!

Next up, some videos from last week's Maddy's Mighty Mutts Family Fun Day concert at The Roberta Bondar Pavilion have made their way online! Though the exact lineup order was never released, between 9 and 11 acts graced the stage for this dog rescue charity fundraiser on this Wednesday (which is still odd timing to me, especially given its 8 hour runtime). You can see some of what took place that day on the Facebook event page, where promoter Paige Dennie posted videos of four acts there on the "Discussion" thread. The earliest of her videos is of local hard rock quartet 5 Dollar Bribe covering Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag", though the video only runs for 35 seconds and was shot vertically (sadly, all of Paige's videos are vertical and short). I'll be honest, I hate "Teenage Dirtbag", but 5 Dollar Bribe play it well from what I can detect, and Jayce's vocals don't wear on me like on the original, so that much is of note! Give their video a watch below!

I wanted to note re: 5 Dollar Bribe too that local classic/hard rock cover band Separate Wayz shared a "Story" on Facebook of 5DB playing during their soundcheck. Why was Separate Wayz present when they weren't playing? Well, singer Nicole Thibodeau was the "friend" (friends?) teased to be guesting with TNT (Soundcheck's Terry Eaton n' Travis Sharpe, the former also in Separate Wayz) here, and Separate Wayz also posted a "Story" of her and TNT covering "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac at the Family Fun Day. Alas, "Stories" self-destruct after one or two viewings, and are short/vertical videos anyway, so all I can do is tell you about them, but hopefully TNT went over well under the tent! Terry and Travis would perform more with Nicole this past weekend on the road, and I'll talk about that in an upcoming post. Travis was also teased in some event marketing to be guesting with Bone Yard 225 frontman Greg "The Ranting Rockstar" Simpson on this day, but he does not factor into Paige's video from Greg's set.

While being shot vertically doesn't matter for a solo musician, Paige's video runs for only 11 seconds, and it features Greg's slowed down cover of Kiss' "Rock & Roll All Nite", which is a staple of Bone Yard's "uncorked" sets, and The Bearded Lounge's concerts prior. We don't hear much, but if you like Greg's laid back take on this Kiss staple, you'll like what was filmed, as seen below!

Also filmed for the event page was (former?) Dodge This singer/guitarist Jason Taillefer, who had his keyboard ready again here, and Paige filmed him covering Coldplay's "The Scientist" for 21 seconds. Like with "Teenage Dirtbag", I must confess that I don't like Coldplay at all, but Jason at least sings this a little deeper and more matter-of-factly, and he is a talented multi-instrumentalist, as Phatstick fans will be well aware! The last of Paige's videos comes from this concert's co-headliner, namely former Haggith/Eclipse frontman Curtis McKenzie (Bone Yard 225 played last on this evening). Paige filmed him covering Collective Soul's "December", but for one reason or another, this 21 seconds-long instrumental clip can't be embedded on external websites, even though everything else in the post from that day can be. Facebook has been iffier lately re: videos randomly being unembeddable, even with no copyrighted music, so yeah, it's something to juggle at present.

What we hear sounds good, but again, no singing. Embedded below is a video of Curt at the Family Fun Day, but this was actually uploaded by Beck's Bar's Facebook page, with a hard-coded caption slapped on it in post-production to hype Curtis' matinee concert there this past Sunday. Obviously, the caption limits my ability to relevantly use it for concert preview purposes around here, but on this video (also of him covering "December" from a closer vantage point), we do get more of an actual verse with singing, and while I do think Curtis should lower his voice a tad, it's well done for what was filmed! Give it a watch below, and see more from Family Fun Day above!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for another likely news post later today! Thanks everyone!