This Weekend's Sault Ontario Metal/Hard Rock Concert Previews!!

Let's wind down this relatively slow month of February with one last post, as we have a busy weekend of metal and hard rock shows in the Twin Saults to preview today! I'm gonna move the lone Sault Michigan previews (Nudge's latest local concert weekend) to tomorrow's news post to spread everything out better, so as a result, we'll focus on three notable concerts from today through Saturday in Sault Ontario. Without any further adieu, here's what you need to know for your weekend concert plans as we close up one month and enter another! (Updated at 5:47 PM)

We start TONIGHT at The Rockstar Bar, where Hamilton hard rock quartet 40 Sons will make their long awaited return to Sault Ontario! Last seen here at the old Coch's Corner in late 2009 & early 2010, this band is sure to be familiar from both their first local stops and from a long successful run in Southern Ontario, opening for numerous major artists, and even seeing their song "Hurricane" used at the UFC 152 pre-show! It'll be good to see their unique blend of modern hard rock back in the Soo after a 3 year absence, and thank local concert promoter J.D. Pearce for bringing them back! Uniquely for The Rockstar Bar, there will be NO COVER tonight, but there is still a 19+ age limit for this 9:00 PM event. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! This should be a solidly entertaining concert for you hard rock fans, so don't miss out! The vocals are unique for the genre, but the music is reliable, often heavy, and very catchy, so head to The Rockstar Bar TONIGHT for 40 Sons! For a preview, here's the video for their single "Hurricane"!



Keeping in the vein of J.D.-promoted concerts, a somewhat unique show hits The Canadian Nightclub tomorrow night to help kick off March, as Apocalypse: The Musical brings 3 tribute bands to the local concert stage! Similar in theme to last January's Merves/Frightlight gig at The Canadian, all three bands tonight feature local musicians playing tribute sets of one major artist's material, including a headlining out of town band featuring a local frontman, and this time around, the headliners are Welland doom metal trio Xanadu! Playing their first gig in over 4 years (I think), Xanadu features prolific local metal musician Jonathan Tiberi on vocals & bass alongside his old bandmates Mike D'Agostini on guitar & Scott Brady on drums, and for the occasion, they'll cover a set full of Black Sabbath classics for their Sault Ste. Marie debut! The Facebook videos that I've seen of Xanadu show a promising metal sound, but who knows how they'll do tomorrow after such a long break? I'm very curious to find out though! Also on board for tomorrow night is Misfits tribute band The Fiend Brigade, who are essentially T-Rex Manning (J.D. Pearce, Tiffany Stocco, and Bill Bennett) alongside J.D.'s Frightlight bandmate Rick White (not the previously announced Frank McCormick) on drums in place of the relocated Daniel MacDonald.

Whether this is officially the new T-Rex Manning lineup or just a one-off tribute set is yet to be determined, but the guys (and girl) do have the chops to do justice to The Misfits, and I'd expect another fun set of covers from them tomorrow night! The opening band was originally slated to be local thrash band Pillory (covering Metallica), and then the returning Late & Loud, but with both dropping out for various reasons, we instead get the one-off tribute band Loud Lazer, who will be covering Motley Crue classics as Late & Loud had intended! The name implies a combination of Late & Loud (via guitarist Jon Tiberi & bassist Benn Garside) and local rock quintet Lazer Queen (via frontwoman Kate Drew & Pillory drummer Bret Shuttleworth), but the complete band is almost a full Lazer Queen lineup, just with Benn on bass instead of the absent Josh Hatherley. This lineup has a lot of chemistry already, and the four members are all quite talented, so I'd expect them to knock out some solid Crue classics tomorrow night!

Apocalypse: The Musical has a $5 cover charge and a 19+ age limit, and everything starts at 10:00 PM tomorrow night. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! I'll definitely be there for this local tribute metal/punk extravaganza, and hopefully many of you guys will roll in for all of the action! For a preview, as Xanadu have no embeddable YouTube videos, here's The Fiend Brigade (more or less) covering The Misfits' "Bullet" at the Humane Society Battle of the Bands last year!

Finally for the Sault Ontario metal/hard rock shows this weekend, Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison will return to The Road House Bar & Grill on Trunk Road tomorrow night, in his latest of many recent gigs at the East End venue! As always, these shows will see Tym covering tons of unplugged version of metal, hard rock, and classic rock hits, and he knows tons of them, so there's a little something for everyone at every Tym Morrison solo gig! This latest solo date will of course be tomorrow at 10:00 PM, with a likely 19+ age limit in place, and no announced cover charge. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! If you're up for something a little more reserved and intimate than the norm, why not take a trip to The Road House on Trunk for some unplugged metal covers tomorrow night? For a preview, here's Tym covering Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" at Bossy's!



That's all for today, but stay tuned tomorrow for the Nudge concert previews, a new local band and label, and more! Thanks everyone!