Halloween Party XV Review!!

It's now time for our review of Friday night's fifteenth annual Halloween Party from local promoter/Jack Spades frontman J.D. Pearce, as held upstairs at The Rockstar Bar! Only a one night event this year, but a nice packed crowd was on hand for the festivities, and there were a lot of great costumes, including an evil rabbit, a mermaid, Mankind, the devil, Heath Ledger's Joker, and many more. If there was a costume contest, it was very late into the night. Alas, the first band didn't start until after 10:30 PM, so this was a late one, but how were the bands overall?

As they did in 2017, revived local Foo Fighters tribute band The Soo Fighters opened the proceedings on Friday, in just their third live concert set and their first since the departure of 3/4ths of their original lineup. If you missed their first run, you'll be glad to know that their brand of Foos covers went over swimmingly, ranging from early hits like "This Is A Call" & "Big Me" (with Footos) to more recent songs like "Run" & "The Sky Is A Neighbourhood." Frontman Jules Cote still rocks the Dave Grohl wig and fittingly handled the frontman role as such, so we were in good hands there! Of course, with Jeremey and the Amendolas out, new members Wes Greco, Max Ambeault, and Jonas Gasperas filled the lineup out with solid musicianship, though I do not recall Taylor Hawkins wearing PBR armor (and there was more of that to come!) If you love the Foos, there was nothing to worry about from The Soo Fighters' new look relaunch, and here's hoping they have a fourth show in the works!

Second on the night was the debuting local-ish Volbeat tribute quintet The Guitar Gangsters, who delivered a show-stealing set of familiar hits from the Danish hard rock stars! Dipping mostly into older originals like "Still Counting", "Fallen", and "The Human Instrument" over their more somewhat softer newer material, most of the band had experience with Volbeat songs between Garden of Bedlam and Pools of Booze, and it showed on Friday. This was the first time we've seen Garden of Bedlam frontman Erik "Buzz" Boissineau on a local stage in over 4 years, and I'm glad to say that his voice is as strong as ever, and it was great to see him back with drummer Derek Turner for the night! Derek's old PFC bandmate Mike Bird's bass work was solid, and Tiffany Stocco and Jesse Cook (King Torontankhamen?) handled the guitar professionally and with great energy! Volbeat fans ate up The Guitar Gangsters' set, and good luck to them on their road trip to Sudbury later this month!

As for the headliners (an advertised Me First & The Gimme Gimmes tribute), my prediction that they would be Jack Spades was incorrect, making this a rare installment of J.D. Pearce's annual Halloween Party where he was not a lead singer for any bands. Instead, his bandmate Rob Speers fronted his funk/hard rock quartet The Elements for a set of punk covers of non-punk songs, and that worked out well, even if the crowd seemed to be less lively as it passed 1:00 AM. No word on if The Elements would have been the Rob/White Zombie tribute from initial advertising, but they gave a lively, harder-edged take on Paula Abdul, Dolly Parton, and John Denver songs, among many others, and everyone played to their strengths! Interesting spandex Gomez Addams look on James, and Jonas was fully mechanized on drums to start the set! I couldn't stay for the whole set, but The Elements ended things with a bang, and here's hoping for more soon!

Overall, this was a fun Halloween concert, if unfortunately delayed for it's start time, and even with the one night, post-Halloween format, they packed a lot of hard hitting covers into 3+ hours!  You can check out our photos from Friday night at this link and at our Facebook page, and as for videos, here's The Soo Fighters playing "Rope", The Guitar Gangsters playing "Heaven Nor Hell", and The Elements covering Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon"!







That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and updates on the site this week! Thanks everyone!