LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (A Dire Setback & Northwest), Plus New Live Videos!!

I have a backlog of recent news to get through, so let's try and continue remedying that today, as this post contains some new live videos from a pair of prominent local bands on each side of the border, but leading off, here is a pair of Christmas-time LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for you punk fans!

Local indie/punk quintet Northwest will hit LopLops Lounge on Friday, December 20th for a holiday season headlining concert! Their Timmins road trip and CBC Searchlight aside, this has been a surprisingly quiet year for Northwest, who have not played a full-band indoor concert at all in 2019 so far (we only saw them outside at Rotaryfest and in partial acoustic form at the Joni Radford memorial concert.) If you've been missing Northwest's high-energy punk attack as of late, you won't want to bypass this show, which is a spiritual sequel to their EP release party at LopLops last December, but might some more new songs be ready next month again? The openers on December 20th will be new online page-less punk cover quartet The Sick Sons, fresh off of their set opening for The Ripcordz earlier this month, and they should provide a solid compliment in their LopLops debut! Visibly self-promoted, this 19+ show has a $10 cover charge and a 10:00 PM start time.

It's great to see Northwest back for an increasingly rare live concert set over the holidays, and with The Sick Sons' talented and unpredictable set list preceding, good times should be had by all at LopLops next month! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and stay tuned for more from Northwest soon, plus another seasonal gig that The Sick Sons are opening!

Next up, we have one more holiday punk-featured concert the very next day to tackle, as local alt-punk trio A Dire Setback will take part in the Oh!No Collective's fittingly-named Oh!Noel fundraiser event on Saturday, December 21st at The Rockstar Bar! Ostensibly a seasonal fundraiser for the fourth annual Oh!No concert festival in Leeburn next September, organizers will also be collecting canned good donations for The United Way's Harvest Algoma food resource center, which is a wonderful cause! As well, there will be an ugly sweater contest with prizes for the best (worst?) sweater among attendees, so keep that in mind. Fresh off of their own set opening for The Ripcordz, A Dire Setback are the only heavier or punk band on this varied bill, alongside surf rock instrumentalists The Dynowaves and rappers Rick E and Kodex. The former Six, Two, Oh. are no strangers to multi-genre events like this, and there's a little something to please everyone next month!

Also a 19+ event, an 8:00 PM start time is in effect, and while an admission fee of $10 is in effect, a canned good donation will knock $1 off, up to a maximum of 5, so if you bring 5 canned goods, you will get in for half price. Sound like a fun time for worthy causes in both the charitable and entertainment realms, so visit the Facebook event page for more details!

Moving towards some new videos, let's take a detour south to Sault Michigan for the latest from local hard rock band Tarnished, who have officially confirmed the addition of ex-Lift The Broken guitarist Nathan Webber to their lineup, making them a quartet. Nathan appears to have joined the band as early as November 10th based on a Facebook page tag, but his first full electric gig with Tarnished was in their Mount Pleasant show at Soaring Eagle Casino's Ascend nightclub this past Friday. As for bassist Josh Fair, he does appear to still be in Tarnished's full lineup, despite prior Biggby Coffee series advertising implying that he wasn't part of those gigs on the regular anymore. We do have a new acoustic video of Tarnished to share in the coming days, but embedded here is the first public video of Alex, Nathan, Josh, and Tommy on stage together, as they covered Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' "Runnin' Down A Dream" in Mount Pleasant, as shared from attendee Olivia Eden's personal Facebook page onto the band's Facebook page yesterday.

The vertical camera angle isn't optimal, but the quality is pretty good otherwise, and Nathan fits in well for a first plugged-in look! The cover is effectively rocked up with more varied singing from Alex to match, so give it a look below, and watch for more from Tarnished later this week!



Finally for today, let's return to Sault Ontario, courtesy of a new video of local Volbeat tribute quintet The Guitar Gangsters covering "Lola Montez" at J.D. Pearce's annual Halloween party at The Rockstar Bar on November 1st! Shared from bassist Mike Bird's wife Jennifer's personal Facebook page onto their own Facebook page on November 4th (apologies for the delay), this again has the vertical camera angle, but there are some nice close-ups as Buzz enters the costumed crowd, and the audio holds up pretty well! Give this video a look below, and good luck to them in Sudbury on Friday!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's YouTube Channel Profile on the site next! Thanks everyone!