We'll resume our Rotaryfest fallout today by heading back to the closing band one week ago today, namely the one-off reunion of local classic/hard rock cover quintet That's Chester! On that Thursday, the band posted a rehearsal video from the previous night onto their Facebook page, which actually starts with a photo montage set to Saliva's "Ladies & Gentlemen" before moving to live video. There, we see the guys toasting with tequila shots before jamming Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town" (quite literally given their five years off.) Guitarist Gabe Tessaro even showed off a picture of late founding guitarist Eugene Orlando that he brought with him beforehand, which was a nice touch to ensure that he was present! In the description, the band noted that Dan Belanger (who serves as the sound tech for Stage 1 each year, if you didn't know) is officially Eugene's replacement for their reunion gigs, not just a recurring guest.
If you recall That's Chester's use of "_____ Chester" as a jokey stage name for the whole band in the 2000s, then you'll like that Dan's stage name is Audio Chester, so now it is truly official! It'd be nice if the guys could re-post all of their stage names (including those of Eugene, Jim, and Greg), as I don't believe they're easily accessible in one place in 2023. No, they didn't give any context as to why Richard Fullerton replaced Greg Simpson for this gig, if you're wondering. Starting on Wednesday, drummer Ric Datson began sharing actual videos from their Stage 1 set at Clergue Park, and he noted that these were getting delayed from his ideal release because he had three cameras set up and was editing the videos to match. The videos are all pointing the same direction at the stage, with one at the corner of the stage, one near the audience, and one being a drumcam focusing on Ric. What can you see (so far) from That's Chester's reunion set?
The three videos so far include "The Boys Are Back In Town" (which fittingly opened their set), Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law", and as embedded below, two different songs, namely The Bottle Rockets' "Nancy Sinatra" and Collective Soul's "Heavy". For production quality, these videos are great alone, and nicely edited, but That's Chester hold up just fine as musicians to match, and they have a strong handle on these songs across the board! I'd have centered one or two of the camera though, or at least moved one to the other side of the stage. Ric noted that he plans to release a video per day from this set, so watch out over the next two weeks, and give their Rotaryfest 2023 videos (so far) a look above & below!
This wasn't all for Ric Datson at Rotaryfest, as his current classic/hard rock cover quartet Double Down also made their festival debut as the 8:00 band on Friday the 14th, and like with That's Chester, their full set was also filmed officially, this time for Ric's YouTube channel! Some apparent dead air between songs was edited out in post, for the record, and the corner-of-the-stage camera was used for the entire thing here, so prepare to see a lot of guitarist Adam King. Their 40 minute set features (in order) covers of Mack Rice's "Mustang Sally", Big Wreck's "That Song", Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born On The Bayou", Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Let It Ride", The Beatles' "Day Tripper", Sugarloaf's "Green-Eyed Lady", The Stampeders' "Wild Eyes", and Collective Soul's "Shine". It turns out that Adam literally shares vocal duties 50/50 with Joel Syrette, with the two alternating songs for the entire set (Adam leads off on "Mustang Sally").
While Adam did lampshade how his voice got pitchy and flat while doing backing vocals on "Shine", everything sounds fine to me, aided by the high quality video, and it is nice to see Double Down covering some songs you don't see some of their contemporaries do, including some Canadian content! If fans miss the old Bone Yard lineup and/or Mojo, they should be in good hands with Double Down, so check out their whole set below!
We'll close today with an alternate angle of most of Double Down's set, courtesy of attendee Beej Syrette, who live-streamed this for his personal Facebook page and shared it publically on the band's Facebook page. The 26+ minute video captures the first five songs from a nice central angle that lets us get a better actual view of Double Down's set, and while the pure quality of the actual video is lower, it's not bad at all and the audio is pretty clear! You get to see what Ric edited out between some songs too, as anticlimactic as that may be. Check out Beej's Double Down video below!
That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment