LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Haggith) And Weekend Concert Previews, Including The Evans Blue Show!!

It's time for this weekend's local metal & hard rock concert previews, and though the weekend itself is somewhat light, there's a huge concert event going down across the river along with a few other events (not counting any possible ones that I can't source online), so we have an extended preview of that to close this post! For now though, let's begin with a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for Sault Ontario on Saturday!

Local grunge quartet Haggith will make their second live concert appearance in Sault Ontario TOMORROW AFTERNOON as a featured act at this year's Art Gallery of Algoma Culture Days! I apologize for the short notice, but news only came on this gig earlier this week, and I didn't wanna redundantly post the same details twice in a brief span. This event is primarily to promote artistic development and exploration, and to let local youths learn art techniques of their own, so for more details on the artistic aspects of this event, click here! That said, there will be musical entertainment from at least one band (that being Haggith), who will be playing two sets outdoors on the Sault Waterfront Boardwalk tomorrow afternoon, and though a specific location isn't advertised, I'd have to assume they'd be fairly close to the Art Gallery of Algoma at 10 East Street (near the library downtown), so aim that route if you wanna check things out! That said, Haggith will play two sets at 2:00 PM & 4:00 PM tomorrow, with two very different sets planned, as per this photo from their Facebook page, but what's in store?

Their first set will comprise of songs from their planned second album "Deuce" & a bunch of covers (including new versions of Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, The Who, and Joe Walsh songs, among others), while their second set will see the guys play their upcoming debut album "Dragon Joy Ride" in full, along with the non-album track "Public Enemy" and what the band are calling an "extended ending" following the reprise of "Wanko". Haggith's performance will be an all ages and FREE event, with them starting at 2:00 PM and Culture Days itself beginning at 1:00 PM tomorrow. Check the above links for more details! Sounds like an entertaining event, and hopefully Haggith continue their local inroads with a successful day of music, so don't miss it! For a preview, here's Haggith covering Cheap Trick's "Reach Out" at a jam session earlier this month!

Now, we'll move to Sault Michigan for the previously announced shows of the weekend, starting with the return of Cheboygan hard rock trio Driven to the area TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT! A month after last hitting St. Ignace for shows at Timmy Lee's Pub, these talented area favourites will cross the Mighty Mac once again to rock The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino for two concerts this weekend, and you know they'll have lots of entertaining hard rock covers in store for their local fans! Oddly, I haven't seen recent mentions from Driven on these shows on their online pages, but hopefully they're still on & ready to rock St. Ignace for these 21+ concerts! No cover charge is likely, and I'd expect them to be on at 10:00 PM tomorrow & Saturday. Check the above links for more details! Driven should deliver a fun weekend of hard rocking covers for their fans in St. Ignace, so consider a drive down there to see them in action, and hopefully we'll get media of them in action at some point!

Finally, it's a special and very notable hard rock concert at The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino TOMORROW NIGHT, as three notable hard rock bands will rock the stage for some great causes! As you may remember, Sault Michigan students Kim Rogers and Kelsey Raffaele tragically passed away in early 2010 in separate area accidents, and four hard rock bands (Pop Evil, Evans Blue, Graveyard Tan, and locals Nixxon Dixxon) came together to play a special benefit concert in their memory that February. Over 2½ years later, Toronto hard rockers Evans Blue will return to Sault Michigan tomorrow night, this time to headline a very similar second event for the same great causes! Proceeds for this show will go towards The Kids Driving Responsibly Challenge (a group launched in Kelsey's memory to help stop texting & driving), as well as scholarships in both Kim & Kelsey's names for local students, which are great causes to help keep their memories alive and help prevent similar accidents in the future! 

For Evans Blue, this will be their first local concert appearance with current drummer Dusty Saxton (Howard Davis was on drums during their 2010 show here), but their high tempo Chevelle-ish sound (including hit songs like "Cold (But I'm Still Here)" should go over really nicely in their return, so don't miss them tomorrow night! Opening for them on their current Graveyard of Empires tour will be Ohio hard rock quintet State Your Cause, who should make a splash in their Sault Michigan debut with their melodic and diverse blend of hard rock styles! The opening band will be Detroit hard rock quintet Fifth Way, in their first local concert appearance since opening for The Gin Blossoms at The Dreammaker's Theater in April! Featuring Rudyard native Zak Stelmaszek on guitar, Fifth Way are no stranger to the Soo following a number of notable appearances at Kewadin Casino concerts, and I'd expect the same from their heavy brand of originals tomorrow as well, and yes, they'll be plugged in this time! Also, note that this will be Fifth Way's first local concert appearance with new bassist Victor Wooten, who replaced Mike McMann this summer.

This ALL AGES concert, which is being put on by Allstar Promotions in cooperation with Kewadin Cares and local radio stations Rock 101 & 99.5 Yes FM, surprisingly still has tickets on sale for the ultra cheap price of $10 from the eighth row back (center seating aside.) To buy them the usual way, click here for online purchasing, visit the Kewadin box office in person, call 1-800-KEWADIN, or visit Allstar Graphics on 822 Ashmun Street! However, like the 2010 Pop Evil-headlined concert here, local businesses have joined the cause to help this show sell out and enable local attendees (students in particular) to be able to attend, with many buying or encouraging ticket purchases just for the charitable aspect. Those who buy tickets for non-personal use have been freely distributing them to local schools and people who will want to go, with the radio stations pushing for listeners to buy or match ticket sales, with the person buying the most winning a $100 Allstar Graphics gift card. Everything starts at 7:00 PM tomorrow with Fifth Way opening the festivites, and for more details, check the above links and this brand new article from The Soo Evening News featuring info on the concert and some remarks from Zak Stelmaszek about it! (For the record, I don't know any details on any possible meet & greets, so I'd call ahead just in case.)

This sounds like another awesome concert for some great causes, and hopefully all three bands rock the house both tomorrow and in their joint Traverse City set tonight as well! Kim & Kelsey are definitely still missed locally, and if the money raised and attention given help even in a small way, then it'll all be worth it, and kudos to the bands and organizers for all they're doing! Hopefully the show will be sold out by tomorrow night, and you know we'll have all the fallout as it comes in on it! For now though, let's preview this show with Evans Blue's music video for their song "Erase My Scars", and make sure to buy/obtain your tickets for this huge concert tomorrow night!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's CD review (of Woods of Ypres' third album "Woods III: The Deepest Roots & The Darkest Blues") this weekend, along with more news and notes soon! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Sault Riverview Music Festival) And Lots Of Sault Michigan News & Notes!!

Today's news post is entirely dedicated to Sault Michigan, partly thanks to new stuff I bought and learned on a trip I made there this morning! Though mainly to set up some stuff for classes, I bought a book I'm touching on in this post, and stopped by Grooves Music where I bought a CD by a Lansing metal band named Genocya (featuring Saultite Matt Cunningham) who you'll hear more about on the site this fall, and I got some concert information there for a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT in this post as well! Along with news on a local concert from the 1990s that you can buy, and some more assorted notes, read on below for today's all-Sault Michigan post!

A new local music festival is going down next weekend, and it's The Sault Riverview Music Festival! Presented by The Sault Events Inc., this family festival will see all of it's proceeds going towards the Chippewa County Hospice, and there will be plenty of non-musical activities going down on September 7th and 8th, including beer & concessions tents, family activities and games, a 50/50 draw, and a fish fry, so click here or look at the poster on your right for more details! As for the bands, while a full schedule hasn't been posted, the Friday schedule does feature three local hard rock bands, those being Sault Michigan hard rockers Monkey's Uncle, Kinross classic hard rock cover quintet Banned, and young local hard rock quartet Tantrym Tyme (formerly known as Abstract!) They'll join local indie rock quartet The London Gentlemen (featuring Nixxon Dixxon alumni) on the Friday lineup, while the bands on Saturday the 8th don't lean in a heavy direction. The Saturday bands include The London Gentlemen again, plus members Mike Russo & Steve Sivret's acoustic band Fallen Heroes, along with local southern rock band Bittermoon (featuring Monkey's Uncle alum Jim Belleau), a band named Omega Rock that I can find nothing on (can anyone help?) and The Grooves All Stars, who I believe are a band comprised of employees at local music store/festival sponsors Grooves Music. More bands are possible to be announced, so stay tuned in case I hear anything!

This festival will take place outdoors at the grounds of City Hall at 225 East Portage Avenue, it's definitely all ages, and admission is FREE! Bands will be on from 5:00-10:00 PM next Friday and from noon-10:00 PM next Saturday, and check the above links for more details! This sounds like a fun family festival with lots of talented area bands, and hopefully it's a big success so it can return next year! Also, it's nice to get advance notice of a Monkey's Uncle show that isn't at Kewadin Casino, for what that's worth. Stay tuned for updates on the Sault Riverview Music Festival as they roll in!

Next up, I'm glad to finally note that I now have the book "Yooper Bars" that was released last year! I picked it up for $20 at the Lake Superior State University book store, and if you're unaware of it, it's a travel guide and collection of profiles of most of the bars and taverns in the Upper Peninsula. Written by local authors Randy & Kevin Kluck after an 8 month journey through the U.P.'s bars last year, and published by the Whiskey River Publishing Company in the Soo, it does feature a heavy dose of bars in Sault Michigan & the Eastern Upper Peninsula, including some references to metal bands & live concerts that go down at them! This includes 28 bars & taverns within our current coverage range, 10 more in Chippewa, Mackinac, and Luce County that we'll likely touch on in future SMS expansions, and dozens more in the central and western U.P.. Just on my first readings of it, I notice that it's not entirely comprehensive (the bars at Dondee Lanes & and at any of the Kewadin Casinos aren't covered, for example), and parts are now a bit outdated (i.e. Bullwinkle's Bar & Grill in Moran is now Todd's Tavern), but this looks like it will be a quality resource for barhoppers & revellers in the U.P.! That said, I'll leave full assessments until my formal review, but definitely get more info at this location, and pick it up wherever you can!

Thirdly today, does anyone out there wanna pick up a live video from the old Tumble Inn in Eckerman, Michigan? There's a glam metal band that is actually selling a full concert video from their show there in the 1990s, so here's what you need to know! Some of you guys may be familiar with the Phoenix, Arizona glam metal band Tuff, who may be best known for their ballad "I Hate Kissing You Goodbye" and their Kid Rock parody "American Hair Band", but back in their late 1980s/early 1990s heyday, they came through the area once with cameras in tow! Tuff played at The Tumble Inn on September 8th, 1994, and while online details of said show are minimal, you can purchase the full video of that concert by clicking here or here! The concert (and other past show videos) are $22 plus tax and shipping, which will tip the total cost to $30 and higher depending on where you're having it sent. I don't know whether the show will be on DVD or VHS, but this is an interesting offer, especially knowing how hard it can be to find 1990s concert videos from the Sault area, and I might have to take Tuff up on this offer and buy the Tumble Inn show for SMS uses! If you guys are interested, visit the above links, and check out Tuff online for some fun glam metal originals!

Finally for today, here's four assorted shorter stories across the river from the last little while, and as always, these are in alphabetical order by band name:

• Local concert promoters Allstar Promotions have posted a photo album from the Buckcherry/Fuel concert at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino on August 13th onto their Facebook page featuring shots of the headlining bands and the pre-concert autograph & meet and greet sessions! I wish they'd advertise the meet & greets more online, but everyone looks like they had fun, and for photos of The London Gentlemen's opening set, click here!
• One of the opening bands for the Evans Blue-headlined concert at the Soo Kewadin Casino on September 29th will be State Your Cause, an Ohio based hard rock quintet who have been opening for them on Evans Blue's current tour run. Local promoters haven't confirmed their addition online, but concert posters in town confirm their involvement. They have a solid radio hard rock sound and should fit in well for this special charity concert, so check them out at the above links! The other band isn't known yet, but my money's on a local band. I'll keep you guys posted!
  
• Defunct local hard rock quintet Swayze Train have quietly deleted their Facebook page. A reason for the page's removal isn't known, but the breakup in April is likely tied in with it. That said, as their Reverbnation page is still online (bare as it may be) and as we have online information on them still in good supply, I just replaced their link on our inactive Sault Michigan band listings. Stay tuned for hopeful updates on the members' next moves!
• I wanted to apologize for another missed concert, as young local hard rockers Tantrym Tyme apparently performed at this year's Sidewalk Sales event in downtown Sault Michigan last month, as per postings on their Facebook page. Bands generally play outdoors for free during this sales event at local stores, such as the recently inactive Free Refill, but these slipped me by, and I sincerely apologize for that! Keep an eye out for future proper concerts from them as I hear of them!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our last posts of the summer (this weekend's concert previews and our Oddfellow CD review) tomorrow & Friday! Thanks everyone!