Before we dive headfirst into lots of big news, notes, and videos, here's this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! This monthly feature looks at randomly chosen local metal, hard rock, and/or punk acts from the past, in order to spotlight them and their runs for modern readers, and we've got a very talented (if not frequently seen) local tribute band this month, so here's what you should know on them!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Genre: Progressive Metal
Lineup:
John Barber (The Luxury, Redefined), vocalsSteve Myers (Odd Man Out, Sense Of Truth), guitar
Alain Fletcher (Half Past, Skeyes Of Seven), bass
Anthony Gagnon (The Luxury, Late Shift), drums
Audio/Video: Much of Parabol's publically posted media was lost when Facebook took their original Facebook page down for copyright violations (their faithful Tool covers were getting flagged as being Tool's own songs), and when a new one was launched in mid-2020, the band only posted photos and videos from their Soo Blaster headlining date the previous October there. As far as I know, their only other extant public video is from their debut in October 2018, where I filmed them covering "Schism" for the SMS' Facebook page. The band's two official Facebook videos from the 2019 Soo Blaster date include this compilation video, and as embedded below, the guys covering "Lateralus" in full!
Info/Analysis: Debuting as an unnamed Tool tribute band during J.D. Pearce's penultimate Halloween party at The Rockstar Bar in October 2018, the band returned there in December alongside inactive funk/hard rock band The Elements, who adopted a temporary guise as a Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band here under the Scar Tissue moniker. After briefly choosing Lateralus as their name, the Tool tribute settled on Parabol in January 2019, and played one more Rockstar Bar show alongside "Scar Tissue" that March. After headlining the Shelby Kerns benefit concert at The Grand Gardens that June, Parabol rocked Soo Blaster to cap off their first year together in October. Following a road trip to Sudbury the following month, Parabol went on a 2+ year concert hiatus, heavily aided by the pandemic. They returned for what would be their final concert at Soo Blaster on June 4th, 2022, and have not been heard from since.
While John & Anthony have since moved on to paying tribute to The Tragically Hip with The Luxury, Parabol packed a lot of faithfully and extremely competently rendered Tool classics into their six local dates (and their Sudbury concert), and fans of Tool's progressive metal standards were in very capable hands if they saw them live! The late 2010s proved surprisingly fruitful for locally-based tribute rock bands, and Parabol were arguably the biggest of them all, playing to some big crowds (if not all that regularly), and hopefully the guys return if the time is right!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! This series will return on or around September 10th when we return to Sault Michigan for our next randomly selected band profile, as we'll be looking at local thrash metal solo project Drayton Fever! Watch for that then, and for a lot of big news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment