Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Rotaryfest 2014 Video Showcase (Part 2)

Earlier today, we shared the first half of our look at Sault Online correspondent Mike Caruso's videos from this year's Rotaryfest stage at Clergue Park, all as uploaded to his YouTube channel over the last few days, so let's touch on the second half of the videos in this post! You can see videos from the first half of the event (including hard rock covers by KT, Kyle, and The Pocket, Beaumont Avenue, Stiffler's Mom, and Domina) in the post below this one, so give them a look if you want! Focusing on the majority of Saturday's bands today, let's start with the second of two straight all-female bands that day, as hard rock quartet The Danger Cats made their own Rotaryfest debut! Mike filmed them covering The Kinks' "All Day & All Of The Night" (with some gender-related lyric changes), which is a well done rendition, but Kate Kougar's vocals are generally too quiet. Solid performance, so give The Danger Cats' Rotaryfest video a look below, and I think there might be at least one more clip floating around too, so keep an eye out just in case!



Right after them was local classic rock cover quartet Obsession (featuring Domina frontwoman Valerie Powley) as they covered Nazareth's "Turn On Your Reciever", and they did a fine job as usual! The band (who finally have their own Facebook page) have always shown clear skill when doing heavier covers, and having vocals like these never hurts on this quality cover! If you're curious, the guest backing vocalist is Alandra Brooks, who you may recognize from Mike Case's junior rock camp bands. Check out Obsession's Rotaryfest video below!



Mike's four videos following Obsession were of classic rockers Mid Life Crysis covering Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)", Spyder's Web covering the Creedence Clearwater Revival classic "Who'll Stop The Rain", country quartet Summer Thunder covering Darius Rucker's "Wagon Wheel", and one-off Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks tribute band Free Falling covering The Travelling Wilburys' "End of the Line", so give each of those songs a look above! The closing bands were both hard rock performers, with the last local band of the 2014 Rotaryfest being Griphook, whose Rotaryfest video might be their first public clip with new singer/guitarist Joel Syrette in place of Jim O'Leary. However, guitarist Brian Oja provides lead vocals on this cover of Bad Company's "Rock Steady", and he handles it very well, hitting the higher chorus notes with ease! Very nice cover with good energy, and is it surprising that Griphook were Saturday's only local band with an all-male lineup? Check out their Bad Company rendition below!



Lastly for Mike's Rotaryfest videos (which are awesomely shot, save for some audio quality jumps at some camera angle switches) is this video of headliners Michael White & The White paying tribute to Led Zeppelin with a rendition of "Black Dog"! The veteran Toronto-based Led Zeppelin tribute sound good here, and while you may notice that Michael's vocals don't sound that much like Robert Plant's original singing on this song, it does bear resemblances with how this song sounded at their "Celebration Day" reunion show from 2007 (click here for proof.) Well done cover that Zeppelin fans should enjoy, so give it a look below!



I hope you guys liked our look at Sault Online's Rotaryfest videos, and as teased above, I believe there's at least one more from The Danger Cats to share in the coming days as well! That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

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