If you missed the Room 206/The Inner City Surfers reunion concert for Room 206 drummer Allan Watson's stag-and-doe at Soo Blaster on April 5th, then good news, as bassist Brad "Example" Lacell posted full set videos of both bands onto his YouTube channel! This is not unlike when Brad had a camera rolling for The Surfers' reunion in 2023 for drummer Mikey Hawdon's public stag-and-doe concert, but this time, Brad got both bands on film, and from a much better angle than the partially obscured side-stage video last time. No, Brad didn't upload a video of BookcluB's opening set. While Room 206 did reunite to record a song on Tidal Records' "Junk In The Trunk" compilation in 2003, Brad said that they were live here "for the first time in 33 years". I want to say that that is a slight exaggeration, but it's certainly been multiple decades! They closed the night, but with Brad not transcribing the setlist, what all did they play?
The 66 minutes-long video begins a few minutes before Room 206 actually began, with the MC's introduction coming in at the one minute mark, including frontman Mike Yorke's brief rendition of "Happy Birthday, Big Diesel" in honour of attendee Mike Denisch. The proper set begins at the 3:22 mark with "My Trip", "Anyways", a cover of Sebadoh's "S. Soup", "Ride My Rocketship Of Love", covers of The Pixies' "Head On" and The Smashing Pumpkins' "Today", "Pretentious", "I'm Feelin' Fine", and "Garden Of Life", before some surprise covers of Tool's "Opiate" and Rage Against The Machine's "Bullet In The Head". After a shout-out from Inner City Surfers drummer Mikey Hawdon (whose local boutique label re-issued Room 206's 1994 cassette tape on vinyl), the guys played their original "Nature Calls" alongside a young guest guitarist named Skyler (I think), though I don't know his full identity off hand.
The core four members of Room 206 then played "Pretend To Be", before they invited the aforementioned Mikey Hawdon on stage to join in on guitar and backing vocals for "Good Enuff" & "I'll Be Around", the bonus songs from the vinyl re-release that Mikey performed on with guest musicians. The guys and Mikey closed the set with a cover of Fugazi's "Waiting Room", with the last two minutes of the video featuring thank yous and everyone wrapping things up. Strong set with faithfully performed renditions of Room 206's classic songs, and Mike, Dave, Brad, and Al haven't lost a step! The audio quality is better than the video quality though, as the visuals are very soft and kinda blurry, while the video was accidentally shot and uploaded while mirrored (the stage logos give it away). I am a little surprised that Room 206 didn't tackle "Last Stance", but all of "2 Innies & An Outie" made the cut, as well as a lot of unexpected covers.
Whether it takes another three decades or so for Room 206 to play another reunion concert, I can't say, but hopefully we do see them again, as they had a fun and very nostalgic night last month to help celebrate Allan and Audrey's nuptials, and if you missed out on the action at Soo Blaster, then relive their headlining set for yourselves below!
As for The Inner City Surfers, Brad's stationary camera (slowly moved to a central vantage point early on) captured their 57 minutes-long co-headlining set, and it starts with their rendition of "The Mexican Hat Dance", which is a common set opener or interlude of theirs. As it often does, it leads into their own original "Won't Belong", followed by "Screwed", "Pickin' From The Country", "Rollin", "Been Done", "Never Ender Bender", "Get High", and their cover of Stompin' Tom Connors' "Algoma Central No. 69". The Surfers introduced Room 206 drummer (and Mikey & Dustin's BookcluB bandmate) Allan Watson during that cover, after which he joined them behind the kit for a Mikey-sung rendition of The Beastie Boys' "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)". Mikey returned to drums for the rest of the set, which included "Grab My Pen", "Here's To The Days", "Booze N' Doobs", and "The Quest".
The latter was again extended to 9 minutes with 1980s covers from acts like Dire Straits and Corey Hart, so that was another fun way to cap things off! Setlist-wise, this Surfers gig was very similar to their 2023 stag-and-doe set, albeit with a re-arranged order, less cover interludes, and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" & "Commandments" replaced by the Stompin' Tom cover and "Rollin", a very rare instance of the I.C.S. playing a song from their oft-forgotten 2004 CD "Time To Travel On". While still fuzzy and mirrored, this is a quality look at Dustin, Dave, Brad, and Mikey tearing through many of their best loved classics, so local punk fans won't want to miss the latest Surfers reunion set embedded below!
That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's YouTube Channel Profile next! Thanks everyone!
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