It's been almost a month, so let's take another gander into what local/Barrie crossover thrash quintet Spades GT have been up to as of late! When we last left off with them, we were noting the fallout from their set at the Steve Edwin McLeod tribute concert at The Rockpile in Toronto on March 14th, and if you want something much longer, more horizontal, and less restrictive than a "Reel", then good news! Attendee Jake Disman (who has filmed Spades GT at multiple concerts since 2023) was on hand to film bands across the whole night for his YouTube channel, and while he curiously mixed up the bands for individual staggered uploads rather than posting them in performance order, five videos of the former Jack Spades can be seen there, capturing all seven of their songs. Our first full, raw, and unedited looks at the band with new bassist Sean MacNab, the videos on Jake's channel include "Final Girl", their new song "United", ...
..."Cenobites", "Sewer City Radio", and as embedded below, their three openers "They Live", "Rise", and "Succubus" in one upload. Jake did note in the videos' descriptions that bands playing this concert donated their time for the occasion, and a dog rescue charity got all of the proceeds from it, so kudos to Spades and all involved for paying tribute to Steve in the best way they could! The videos were all filmed from a high stationary vantage point, and while the audio can be somewhat muffled, we get a great view of the stage throughout Spades' and other bands' videos. Everyone sounds good, Sean fits in well, and Matthew's stage presence is great, so give these brand new videos a watch above & below!
Now, Spades GT did post a separate edit of "Succubus" from this night to their Facebook page on April 1st (definitely not a prank), combining Jake's footage with that of ZigSeven's Dave Galante, who also filmed the guys at Walterstock in January. While well edited with cool post-production effects, I'm actually not going to embed that video here because Dave again included his raw footage from this concert in its own lengthy YouTube video, as he did at Walterstock. If you want to jump straight to J.D., Dan, Tyler, Matt, and Sean in action, you'll want to head to the 1:04:19 mark of this 2 hours & 43 minutes long video, and their complete 20 minute set was included in order, so what did Dave capture last month? He is literally walking to the stage as Spades' set begins, and in order, you'll see them playing "They Live", "Rise", "Succubus", "Final Girl", "United", "Cenobites", and "Sewer City Radio". The closer mobility of Dave & his camera leads to some solid angles!
Seeing these in unedited performance order does emphasize the fact that Spades GT were playing on a packed lineup with relatively strict set times, and while they crammed seven songs into their timeslot, you can tell that they were rushing somewhat (J.D.'s between-song banter and introductions can be very hard to hear due to how fast he's talking). Still good stuff, let alone of the night's other bands, so see what you missed in Toronto last month below, with Spades' set coming on 64 minutes in!
After picking fans' brains as to what cities they should play at next and what bands they should share the stage with, Spades GT revealed on Facebook on March 28th that "we have been rocking to the new mixes of the new album & it's fire", while "big things are happening with the new record, and announcements are inbound soon". On April 14th, the guys announced their next concert date, which will see them and two other bands open for drummer Tyler Reiner's old Toronto melodic death metal band Selias at The Queens Nightclub in their current Barrie homebase on Wednesday, June 11th. Readers may recall Selias from headlining locally at Soo Blaster twice in the past year, and it will be neat to see them share the stage with Spades GT this summer, albeit from 6 hours away! Also newly confirmed is their set at Rye Fest 5, a big multi-band concert taking place outside of Rye Field Studios in Brantford, on Saturday, August 9th.
Spades GT fans may recall seeing the guys play at Rye Field for the studio's YouTube channel back in late 2023, as well as taking part in an interview and other video content, and you can see all of that at this link. As far as I can tell, bands playing at Rye Fest are past favourites from Rye Field's social media uploads. Should be a good time, so keep it in mind for later this summer if you'll be in Southern Ontario! Nothing major has turned up from the guys since, with their newest Facebook postings being part of a series of "100 days of thanks", where they thank a person a day for their support, coverage, input, or collaborations with/of the band. If they don't skip any days or give up on the conceit outright, this will run until July 27th, and while that could mean nothing, the band did note that their new album is slated for release in July in the caption of their recap "Reel" from the Toronto show last month.
Could the "100 days of thanks" be a covert countdown for the album release, or just coincidental good will? We'll know in due course, but keep July in mind for the new Spades GT record, and visit the above links for more from their camp, and stay tuned for more news and notes soon! Thanks everyone!
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