It's been a week since this year's Rotaryfest concluded, so let's begin looking at the local news coverage and public videos from this past weekend's live musicians at Stage 1 at Clergue Park! Both The Sault Star and SooToday were on hand for day #1 on Thursday, July 18th, with the former's Kyle Darbyson taking photos of Generations and Brendan Hodgson's sets that you can see at this link, while the latter's Dylan Taylor got pictures of Pegasus' set for this article. Both also got other photos of the day's festivities beyond the bands, and the photos are nice as you'd expect! Regarding Pegasus, The Sault Star's Brian Kelly interviewed keyboardist Jeff Holmes for this article last month, where the classic rock veterans revealed that their reunion shows at Rotaryfest and The Water Tower Pub the next day would be their last. Hopefully they had a good sendoff to local fans across both nights! Now, let's look at some videos from a couple of bands on the Thursday program!
I've only found public videos from two of the four Thursday bands, including a clip of local country musician Brendan Hodgson covering Big & Rich's "Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy" in this recap video shot by attendee Ron Boulard for his YouTube channel. Not a long glimpse, but it looks like a fine performance for country fans, if not too close to the stage! Their portion is 36 seconds into the video, running for about 20 seconds. The other Thursday videos come from local classic/hard rock cover quartet Generations' set, which were filmed by drummer Tony Santoro's wife Dawn and posted to their Facebook group later that night in a batch post also featuring photos of their set. Within the post, you'll see Generations covering Concrete Blonde's "Joey", Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle" (with guitarist Tony Kajnar on lead vocals), and as embedded below, Alannah Myles' "Black Velvet".
Alas, all three videos are vertical, with "Joey" and "The Middle" being filmed at more a skewed angle at that, but Dawn was right close to the stage, and she had a good look at Generations knocking out these three covers with ease! Check them out above & below, and don't miss Valerie, the Tonys, and Pierre at Shooters Downstairs Lounge in two weeks!
Moving ahead to the Friday, July 19th program, the very first artist that day was local/Barrie alternative hard rock musician Mike Haggith in his third straight solo set on Stage 1, but this was definitely a chance to make amends for last year, when he suddenly dislocated his knee in a freak accident early in his set, and had to be brought to Sault Area Hospital by ambulance for treatment shortly afterwards. In advance of this year's return, Mike was interviewed by the aforementioned Kyle Darbyson for this Sault Star article on July 11th, where he talked about his mental processes after what happened (especially for his CD release on a big stage), his physical rehabilitation and recovery since last year's accident, his songwriting process & themes, how he has handled the accident publically since, and how he wanted a "shot at redemption" via returning to Rotaryfest for a full set without a similar mishap. Very solid article, so click here to read it for yourselves!
If you missed Mike's set with his newly named Big Finish Band last Friday, you can watch the complete live-stream below courtesy of Mike's YouTube channel, and I am happy to confirm that Mike played the whole set and his knee did not blow out again! This year, ex-Gnaeus bassist Matt Fronzi took over for Jacob Quarrell, while past guest backing vocalist Elly McWatters joined as a permanent member on rhythm guitar and/or backing vocals on most songs. Perhaps due to Elly's expanded role, Mike only played guitar himself on the opening song and tracks #7-9 of the 11 song set, though note that Mike was playing guitar when Kneegate happened last year. Brought to the stage by one of the EMTs that helped Mike last year (nice full circle moment), the set began with Mike's original song "Carousel", which did not feature Elly at all, followed by a surprise cover of Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero".
That song featured just A Dire Setback's Chris Nielsen on guitar, with Elly on backing vocals only, but she debuted on guitar for the follow-up cover of "Missing" by Mike and drummer Brandan Glew's old band The Din. It was actually Brandan's birthday that day, so what a way to celebrate! The next two tracks appear to be debuting new originals named "I Really Hope This Gets To You" and "No Love", Established originals resume next with "Hot & Cold" (the song that they were playing when Mike's knee gave out last year), with Mike picking up his guitar late in time for "If Ever Comes The Day" and "If Only You Could Hear Me". Mike gave The Big Finish Band a break to do a solo cover of Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band's "In Your Time" in honour of his aunt, who passed away a few days prior to Rotaryfest. She was a Bob Seger fan, and this was a nice touch on his part to pay tribute to her!
The band returned to end the set, with Mike setting his guitar back down for a surprise cover of Louis Tomlinson's "Silver Tongues", before closing with his own "All The Best". From what I gathered in this 40 minute set, Mike and crew definitely made up for last year with a fun, energetic, and even poignant set! Mike seemed in good spirits (and on steady joints), and those two new songs had a strong full sound to them! Elly is clearly developing as a guitarist but she certainly didn't detract from the set, which was shot in high quality (and in landscape!) despite being very skewed to not be in the fans' road. Check out the full live-stream below, and don't miss Mike & the band at next month's Northern Vibe Festival!
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