Major Superior Festival Updates, Plus New Sault Michigan Videos!!

Before we dive back into concert previews, here's an all-Sault Michigan post for your Friday afternoon! Along with a pair of videos from local solo artists, we're leading off with huge changes for a hyped debuting concert festival, so here's what you should know!

We have some big updates regarding the first annual Superior Festival in Sault Michigan, which has been postponed, relocated, and downsized all at once. Originally planned to be held tomorrow at Aune-Osborne Park, promoters Superior Entertainment have confirmed that the ambitious festival has been moved ahead two weeks to Friday, August 21st, and will now take place at The Savoy Bar & Nightclub (5 minutes up the road.) According to this new Sault Evening News article, the move in date and location was due to concerns with the weather forecast for Saturday and to avoid the financial hit of cancelling the event if there was rain, with The Savoy being a safe option to safeguard against the weather. If the forecast is good, they can set up outdoors like with their Summerfest series, but if they're calling for rain, they can hold it indoors and still have over 500 fans. Despite the new location, minors under the age of 21 can still attend if accompanied by an adult.

With the changes, the lineup has been downsized from what was previously announced, with planned local openers Integrated System of Machines, Power Slug, Retro Troop, and Terry Talentino, and Detroit punk trio Heroes of Charlotte all now out of the event. Reasons for their individual withdrawals weren't announced, but remember that the festival was postponed two weeks, and the new date may not jive well with many personal schedules. A trio of out of town bands are still on board, including Mississippi hard/modern rock quintet (and recent Kewadin Casino headliners) Saving Abel, Rochester, New York post-hardcore band Lights Out Paris (who played last month's P.O.D. show), and Muskegon hard rock quartet Voodoo Theory. Local hard rockers Tantrym Tyme are the only remaining Sault Michigan band, while the last two bands are both from Sault Ontario, including the return of classic/hard rock trio Mourning Wood (who had been replaced by Retro Troop initially.)

The only new additions are Sault Ontario funk/hard rock quartet The Elements, marking their Sault Michigan debut and first announced concert since the spring, which is both surprising and nice to see! Also note that SooToday (which Elements frontman Rob Speers works for) are now listed as a presenting sponsor on the poster, but I have yet to see confirmation on SooToday's end regarding their involvement. Everything is later now too, running from 7:00 PM-2:00 AM instead of 12:00-11:00 PM. As best as I can tell, tickets are now a flat $25 with no discount option for kids, but previously purchased tickets will be honoured on August 21st, or can be swapped at point of purchase (though note that Kewadin Casino's ticket page doesn't have a new link for online ticket sales yet.) New tickets can be bought at The Savoy itself or at (906) 430-5242 as well, though no word on if the planned motorcycle giveaway will continue given the festival changes. For full details on the Superior Festival's changes, visit the above links!

I will note that the weather forecast for tomorrow currently calls for partly cloudy conditions and a peak chance of rain at 15% tomorrow afternoon, but for a first year outdoor festival, I can understand promoters playing things safe just in case. Hopefully the Superior Festival is still a huge success in two weeks despite everything, and I'm especially curious to see how the two Sault Ontario bands do on the U.P. stage! Stay tuned when and if more updates roll in, and see above for all of the changes!

We'll close this post with new videos, including a brand new song from local extreme metal solo project The 1,000,000,000's Who Died! Entitled "Execute", it's an unusual posting in that it's the first song posting in over 2 years that doesn't coincide with label Werehold Records' usual Friday the 13th music events from their YouTube channel (the next Friday the 13th is in November.) This short instrumental showcases Life's Eclipse frontman/Werehold founder Jason Mills' brutal metal talents well, but it could use a little variance (or vocals) to break from some monotonous parts. Give The 1,000,000's Who Died's new song a listen below!



Finally, here's a new guitar solo video from 415E guitarist Chris Hubbard, as uploaded to his YouTube channel yesterday! An attempt at replicating a live guitar solo from recent tour dates by Eddie Van Halen (who Chris is a huge fan of, if you don't follow his solo postings and band work), comments on the video are already lauding Chris' performance here for it's accuracy to EVH himself, and even if you're not familiar with that solo, this is still excellently done! Give Chris' new video a look below!



That's all for now, but stay tuned for more weekend concert previews in short order, including, yes, possible late notice ones! Thanks everyone!