The Return Of Skeyes Of Seven, Plus A New Live-Streamed Concert!!

Here's a new news post to check out on this Wednesday evening, and it is devoted to two topics relating to veteran local musicians: A new live-streamed at-home concert, and a surprise reunion from a talented band who are throwing their hat into a contest ring. Here's what you should know!

Local hard rock quintet Skeyes of Seven are back! Almost three years removed from their last public update and live concert, the guys have entered the $20,000 Summer Song contest being held by Corus Radio, as well advertised on many of their active radio stations, which is open to Canadian musicians and bands looking for their big break. Prospective acts have until Tuesday to enter via a video performance (performers don't have to be in the same room in the video), and a panel of judges from Corus Radio stations will pick the top 10 performances, before ultimately determining the $20,000 winner, plus a fan-voted $2,000 prize. Full disclosure, Corus Radio does not have any stations in Northern Ontario, but their closest ones to the Soo (source here) are the London rock station FM 96 and the Barrie top 40 station Fresh Radio 93.1. As best as I can tell, Skeyes of Seven are the only local band to enter at press time.

A couple of groups familiar from past local concerts have entered, like The Fortunate Losers and The Killin' Time Band, but there are dozens of entries that you can check out on the contest's YouTube channel, and all genres are welcome, as evidenced by the contest being hyped on rock, top 40, and country stations. You would think that being in a market 6 hours removed from a Corus-served city would be a disadvantage to Skeyes of Seven, but as of this writing, their video is the 15th most viewed in the Summer Song contest, so maybe that's a good sign? As for their video proper, this was filmed remotely due to social distancing (one assumes), and it features their entire 2017 lineup (Cory, Ron, Kyle, Al, and John) before they went on hiatus. The guys entered their (new?) song "Detonate" for the contest, and it has a good heavy sound with some progressive flourishes, including very solid guitar work and nice raspy yet melodic singing from Cory!

With the pandemic raging onward, it's anyone's guess when we'll see Skeyes of Seven in a proper public concert again, but it's great to see them back performing together in any fashion, and hopefully their return isn't just for this contest! Give "Detonate" a watch below, visit the above links for much more on Corus Radio's Summer Song Contest, and Skeyes of Seven are definitely back in our active band links!

Finally for today, local hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison hosted his 29th live-streamed concert on his YouTube channel last Thursday, and after show #28 was cut off after only a couple of songs due to technical difficulties, fans will be glad to know that the run-time of this one is back to his usual 2 hour length! Unfortunately, Tym is continuing to block external embedding of his live-streams on both this one and yesterday's (which will be covered on the site very soon.) After about 6 minutes of setup and the "Starting Soon" card, Tym's set from Thursday begins by covering Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'", Ed Sheeran's "Perfect", 10cc's "I'm Not In Love", Phil Collins' "One More Night", Radiohead's "Karma Police", Cheap Trick's "The Flame", Guns 'N Roses' "Patience", The Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care", Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble's "Pride & Joy", Cat Stevens' "Wild World", ...

...The Flys' "Got You (Where I Want You)", Nazareth's "Sunshine", and Collective Soul's "Shine" (reprised from last Tuesday), before playing two original songs. The first one is not titled and I'm not confident in guessing it's name, but I have heard Tym play it before, while the other is "Nadine RIP My Friend", which Tym wrote and released online in 2013 in honour of his late friend Nadine Dowding (hear the original version here). Afterwards, Tym covers John Fogerty's "The Old Man Down The Road" and Richard Marx's "Hold On To The Nights", before tackling two more original song, namely his older cut "The Reason Why" and his more recent live staple "Say That You Care". The covers return to end the show, including renditions of Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver", Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb", Extreme's "Hole Hearted", Mr. Big's "To Be With You", and The Beatles' "Blackbird".

Fun show overall with lots of familiar and somewhat deep cuts for his regular at-home concerts, and fans of Tym's original material will like the run of four songs out of six in the back half! The video was somewhat choppy early on, but it leveled out for the majority of the stream, and Tm performed strongly as usual, so fans will want to check out the whole thing below at the above links! That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site in the next few days! Thanks everyone!