LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Stones & Crows), Weekend Concert Previews, And More!!

Before we begin our second weekend concert preview post, just a heads up that Beck's Bar briefly advertised Bone Yard 225 frontman Greg "The Ranting Rockstar" Simpson as playing their Sunday matinee timeslot this weekend, but he has quietly dropped out for unannounced reasons, and was replaced by Whiskey Hippy. Greg will be back, with and without your local 225, but hopefully nothing too serious happened with him and/or the venue! Now, here's what you should know for the rest of this weekend's hard rock concert previews, starting with a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!

New local hard/blues rock quartet Stones & Crows will return to Beck's Bar for one night only on SATURDAY NIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, the band first announced the show on their Facebook page on July 24th, then said it was cancelled due to "scheduling reasons" a day later, only to re-confirm it on the same day this past Friday. As such, disregard their newest black & white promotional video claiming this show as a "last minute announcement", as we have known about if for almost four weeks in fits and starts! This will be the first concert from the Electric Church successors since they rocked Rotaryfest Stage 2 last month, and their first at Beck's since July 3rd, and hopefully the guys deliver a fun evening of originals and covers, as fans have came to expect so far this year! Bukky, Nikki, and Tony take the stage at 9:00 PM with a 19+ age limit and no cover charge as usual.

Fresh off of playing with The Big Finish Band at tonight's Downtown Street Party, Drifters frontwoman and karaoke host Elly McWatters will play a solo country rock set as the 3:00 PM matinee performer on SATURDAY, but as usual, she isn't "opening" for Stones & Crows. See above for more details, and for a preview, here's a new video of Stones & Crows from their Facebook page last month! This video features the guys playing four 10 second snippets of live covers, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Rolling Stones songs among them, and while I'd far prefer full songs (let alone in colour, and not heavily letterboxed), it does give a reasonable preview of songs you might hear on SATURDAY NIGHT, so give it a watch for yourselves below!

Next up, let's head south to Michigan for some E.U.P. shows (all of which had advance notice), starting with Traverse City classic metal trio Peril's second and final headlining gig for 2026 at American Legion Park in St. Ignace TOMORROW NIGHT! Just over two weeks removed from their rare Thursday gig in our neck of the woods for St. Ignace's Music By The Bay concert series, Jeff, Howard, and Brooks will rock the park one more time before things wrap up next month, though the series runs daily until Labour Day. With future shows at the Soo Kewadin in flux (more on that in a second), time will tell when we next see Peril north of the Mackinac Bridge after tomorrow, so don't bypass this concert if you like old school metal and hard rock covers, and will be in the region! Music By The Bay shows are all at 7:00 PM with 90 minute run times, they're definitely all ages, and have no cover charge. 

9&10 News is calling for cloudy skies tomorrow with a 30% chance of rain in the 8:00 PM hour, so while the rain and lightning is expected to peak overnight, consider some rain provisions if you're coming to American Legion Park (the stage has a roof for the bands' sake, at least). Temperatures are expected to be in the 69-71° (21-22° Celsius) range. Visit the above links for more on Peril's outdoor St. Ignace show, and here they are live!

Also this weekend, local classic/hard rock cover quartet Tarnished will play The Rapids Lounge at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino for the final times TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT! Don't worry, Tarnished are alive and well, but they said on their Facebook page on Tuesday that The Rapids Lounge "is being remodeled this fall". You may recall that Kewadin had announced a series of renovations at their five casinos in this press release, which did confirm a planned new sports bar for the Soo branch, The press release says that construction of the sports bar (with virtual game bays!) will begin in "summer 2027", with the demolition of the casino's original East Wing structure beginning this fall also, so that may explain an extended closure from live concerts before the replacement lounge actually gets built. Kewadin's entertainment page lists bands at The Rapids Lounge through the end of September, but time will tell if they happen as scheduled.

That doesn't necessarily portend the real timeline for the end of The Rapids Lounge, as St. Ignace's Northern Pines Lounge also only goes that far for their own scheduled bands at press time. We'll keep you posted when more is known about Kewadin's new sports bar, but when you compare The Rapids Lounge to The Northern Pines Lounge, it never looked as detailed and modern, so this should be good in the long term. Don't miss Tarnished two last times there tomorrow & Saturday! Their hard rocking and old school covers are up at 9:00 PM with 21+ age limits and no cover. See above for more details, and for a preview, here's Tarnished live!

Finally for this weekend's known hard rock concert previews, we'll head to Three One Three On Ashmun, as local hardcore punk trio Viscera will be headliining there on SATURDAY NIGHT! Interesting timing in the sense that the Yooper Frankenstein premiere at LSSU is also on Saturday (frontman "Blind" Bob Quinn worked on the soundtrack for the film), but hopefully both events have a good crowd, and that Viscera devastate local fans with their hard rocking and socially charged sound once again! Continuing their recent positive relationships with musicians from the Western U.P., Marquette indie rock/power pop band Addicus will make their local debut on Saturday, and while not as heavy as Viscera can get, this female fronted group should make some fans out east with their well written and upbeat original material! The other opener is a project named Needhealer, so who are they?

As best as I can tell, Needhealer is a new DIY lo-fi project led by former Pick-Me-Ups bassist Trevor Yake, who primarily sings and plays keyboard here. You can hear his debut synthwave "EP" on Soundcloud, and it'll be interesting to hear how this translates at the former Back Door! Regardless, this is shaping up to be an intriguing genre mix. Presented by Viscera's own Soo Tang Records, this show goes down on Saturday at 7:00 PM, it is an 18+ event, and admission is $10 in advance through Viscera members or $15 at the door. Visit the above links for more on this explosive night of original music, and for a preview, here's the headliners live!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for a new news post on the site next! Thanks everyone!

News & Updates From The Realignment Project & Viscera!!

Now that our weekend concert previews are done and dusted (for now), let's spend some time digging out of our still-massive backlog of stories from the past month, and tonight's post looks at new updates and media from a band on each side of the border, so here's what you should know!

Let's start today with the latest from local industrial metal solo act The Realignment Project, so what have they been up to in the past two months? When we left off with the Matt Hicks-led project, he had just released their first full-length album (as opposed to EPs) "Long Cold Winter", and was in the process of uploading individual YouTube lyric videos of its songs. On June 13th, Matt revealed on their Facebook page that "album 2 is starting to develop some decent bones", so his rapid recording schedule hasn't slowed down just because he's working on longer studio albums! Said post was accompanied by a black-and-white photo of his tracking computer, even. Two days later, two T.R.P. songs were featured on The Tuesday Pump Session show with Jeff Tucker on the Georgia-based internet station Front Row Radio, and it's great to see that Matt's solo music is spreading far beyond the Soo area!

The Realignment Project got some more far-flung internet radio coverage on July 22nd when they and other labelmates at East London Recordings were featured as part of a "takeover" of British internet station Coastal Breeze Radio, so add some more international exposure, and it's good to see Matt's label promoting his music well! Lastly for the recent T.R.P. updates is that they released their second proper music video (not a lyric video) to their YouTube channel. There's less to this in terms of filming, as it's a one-take video of Matt singing the song from the shoulders up, but there was a heavy filter put on it in post-production that looks like the Stylize "Glowing Edges" filter from Adobe Photoshop. I'll hold comment on the song pending our review of "Long Cold Winter" (allegedly available on "all streaming platforms"), but it's a distinct looking video for sure, so give it a watch for yourselves below, and stay tuned for more from Matt soon!

Next up, here's some new updates from Sault Michigan hardcore punk trio Viscera, starting with the reveal on their Facebook page on July 22nd that they have had a print run of their debut EP "From Feast To Famine" made on CD, and they are now on sale via their Bandcamp page for $12 USD (as of this writing, $16.73 CAD). That is certainly good news, even if there isn't an obvious brick-and-mortar location to sell them at in the Soo post-Crooked Music, so buy it above if you want a physical copy! Bands have been added to both of Viscera's announced Soo Tang Records concerts here in the coming weeks, as per updated concert posters on their Instagram page. For their August 22nd headlining concert at Three One Three On Ashmun, they have added Marquette indie rock/power pop quartet Addicus in their local debut, so this show will definitely lean punk, if not have a genre variance.

A female fronted band with a strong upbeat sound and fun lyrics, hopefully Addicus provide a good counterbalance to Viscera's attack in two weeks! A second opening band, local or otherwise, is being sought, so message Viscera above if you wanna join this bill at the former Back Door. As for their show in the basement of Pizza Hut on September 26th, that show has had its lineup capped off with a third touring band, namely Marquette progressive/deathcore quartet SilentLife, also in their Sault Ste. Marie debut. Brutal yet atmospheric sound from them, and definitely not a style of original metal seen often in the EUP, so keep this show in mind for them and much more next month! Finally for tonight's news post, new live videos were filmed at Viscera's most recent gig, a headlining date at Superior Culture in Marquette last week, as shot by a members of other Marquette bands, one being Particle Thrower, who were the first announced openers for next month's Pizza Hut show.

I can't embed these videos here because they are tiled in a batch post, and videos uploaded thusly aren't embeddable on external websites, but the first three feature Viscera live, including their first public footage with new bassist Chris Lovins that I am aware of. Looks like an animated crowd for their hard hitting attack, and the guys look in good spirits (was Blind Bob wearing camouflage face paint?). The third video notably has an overhead view of Mitchell drumming, and if you have the means of a second floor or balcony to make that a reality, you take it! Sadly, these videos are all vertical and reasonably short, but give them a watch above, and stay tuned for more news & notes on the SMS tomorrow! Thanks everyone!