At last, we have a showcase post of videos from the two major hard rock concerts earlier this week, as Rock 101's Facebook page has got us covered from both events! Much like The Sault's Rock Station did for the recent Theory of a Deadman show (they were presenting sponsors for all three), a station staffer had their camera rolling for both Tuesday's Big Wreck concert at The Machine Shop and Wednesday's Pop Evil concert at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino, with videos making their way to their Facebook page during each. We'll get into their Big Wreck footage in an upcoming post, but there's enough from Pop Evil alone to fill a whole post today, so let's start with the headlining Muskegon hard rock quintet! Rock 101 filmed Pop Evil playing their recent hit singles "Waking Lions" and, as embedded below, the much longer "Boss' Daughter". Compared to the prior YouTube clips from this show, the quality is much better despite the distant camera angle from the stage, and the crowd turnout is solid, so give these a look above & below!
Next up, here's another video of Pop Evil's set at The Dreammaker's Theater on Tuesday, and while this is also from 101.3 FM's Facebook page, it's not from the station proper. Instead, fan Dave Fisher publically shared this clip of Pop Evil playing their hit "Trenches" in a comment reply there on Thursday, and it's the best video I've seen yet for view of the band (and not just because it's on a landscape orientation!) Leigh's vocals still sound strained compared to past Pop Evil videos I've seen from the Soo, but the crowd makes up the difference, and the band sounds solid as usual, so give Dave's clip a look also! Hopefully there's more to come at some point!
Moving to the openers, Rock 101 did get a video from each of them, including this clip of Las Vegas "fashion-art rock" band Palaye Royale playing their single "How Do You Do?" Not a bad band, almost reminds me of a cross between indie/alt-rock and goth, if that makes any sense, and they have a harder edge that comes through here despite the somewhat muffled audio quality! Give Rock 101's Palaye Royale clip a look below!
Finally, Rock 101 filmed San Francisco hard rock trio Black Map playing a song during their set, but I can't title it based on recent concert setlists (either my song recognition skills are off today, it's a new to this tour, or it's a cover.) Regardless, their sound is solid, they get good mileage out of their three-piece lineup, and is it wrong to make Chevelle comparisons? Check out this Black Map video below, and thanks again to Rock 101 for filming these videos, with Big Wreck videos to come!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for last month's poll results and a new poll on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!
A unusually high profile stretch of shows is upon us early this week, so let's largely cover those in this Monday morning post, alongside some new videos from a recent concert, and leading off, surprise LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, half on SHORT NOTICE! Here's what you need to know!
Prolific local acoustic hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison has announced six matinee gigs at Mark's Breakfast Plus for this month TONIGHT, TOMORROW, and WEDNESDAY, then again on February 26th-28th! Apologies for the short notice, Tym only announced these shows via their Facebook event page yesterday, and while he did also announce a pair of new Room 21 gigs as well, we will hold those for this weekend's concert previews to avoid redundantly covering them twice in under a week. Already busy enough with his weekly Gliss Steak & Seafood arrangement and bi-monthly Roadhouse gigs, February is suddenly packed for the former Caveman Morrison frontman, with only Thursdays having no gigs at all this month! TONIGHT'S Mark's show will be his first at the Market Mall restaurant of the year, and first in over two months, and if that doesn't work out for you schedule-wise, he will be back there on TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY, and at month's end, so you have plenty of opportunities to see Tym live this month!
And no, the Wednesday gigs will not conflict with his open mic night hosting duties at The Canadian, as their matinee scheduling means they'll end well beforehand. All six of Tym's Mark's shows this month (including TONIGHT, TOMORROW, and WEDNESDAY) are at 4:00 PM with no announced cover charges or age limits, but mind the locale, this isn't a typical concert venue, let alone time of day or week. Check the above links for more details, and here's Tym live a few years back!
Moving
to previously announced concerts, hard rock fans in the Twin Saults
have quite a double header ahead with a huge show on both sides of the
border in the coming days, starting with the long awaited return of
Juno Award winning Toronto/Boston hard rock notables Big Wreck to the Sault Ontario stage TOMORROW NIGHT at The Machine Shop!
Familiar to rock fans for high charting hits like
"Albatross", "Blown Wide Open", and "That Song", this will be Ian
Thornley and company's first local concert appearance since 2001,
so if you've been waiting patiently for their local return for the past
16+ years, here is your big chance! This show is a stop on Big Wreck's
20th anniversary tour for their multi-platinum debut album "In Loving
Memory Of...", and if recent shows are any indication, expect that whole
album to be played tomorrow, albeit in mixed up order! Winnipeg
alternative rock trio Attica Riots
will open this show in their local debut, so look for an upbeat
pop/indie rock-influenced sound from them tomorrow as
well!
Also, don't forget the interview with Ian by The Sault Star's Jeffery Ougler from January 28th, which talks about his musical background, Big Wreck's initial successes and drawbacks, and more, so give this detailed interview a look above or if you still have that issue! Tickets for this 18+ show are $35, and are available at this link or at the Machine Shop and Station Mall's in person box office, while the show proper starts at 8:00 PM. This should be a very solid concert for hard rock fans, especially with such a long wait for Big Wreck's local return, so don't miss all of the action at The Machine Shop tomorrow night, and here they are live!
Finally for this early-week batch of concert previews, we'll head across to Sault Michigan, where Muskegon hard rock quintet Pop Evil will return for their fifth local concert appearance THIS WEDNESDAY NIGHT for a Valentine's Day concert at The Dreammaker's Theater at the Soo's Kewadin Casino! Hitting this venue for their fourth headlining show there, and first since last February, this should be another great opportunity for fans to check out this fan favourite group and their numerous chart-topping hits like "Footsteps" & "Torn to Pieces", plus their newest single "Waking Lions", so there should be lots of familiar hard hitting songs to take in on Wednesday! Las Vegas/Toronto "fashion-art rock" band Palaye Royale (not "Palace") and San Francisco post-hardcore trio Black Map will open this show in their own local debuts, and with the former's indie influenced power rock and the latter's more aggressive metal attack, both should make solid fanbases here on Wednesday, so don't be late for them!
The first concert of 2018 from Allstar Promotions (who have put on most of Pop Evil's local gigs), tickets for this all ages event are $25, and are available at the in-person box office, at this link, or at 1-800-KEWADIN, with limited center section seating still available, but seats from the second row and back are still on sale in the left & right sections. Everything starts at 7:00 PM, and whether you're in this just for the rock, or if this is part of your Valentine's Day plans, Pop Evil should have a great show in store for their U.P. fans once again! See the above links for more details, and here's Pop Evil live at The Dreammaker's Theater last year!
Finally for today, we'll stay on the Kewadin track, as local hard/blues rock quartet Project 906 have shared four videos from their set opening for Laith Al-Saadi at The Dreammaker's Theater on Saturday onto their Facebook page! All vertically oriented cell phone camera clips, two were shared from guitarist Joe Jenkins' personal Facebook page, including the end of their cover of ZZ Top's "Tush", and an instrumental section that I can't identify off hand. Both are more less to showcase Joe soloing, though new drummer Tommy Korcal is in easy view on them also, and the quality is solid despite the length! Attendee Dani Baumann also filmed the guys playing "Tush", and while it is an earlier section with vocals, Joe gets some solid solo time in at the end! The audio quality is even clearer, and while Dani was further from the stage than the filmer on Joe's clips, she zoomed in and showcased Billy & Dustin too, so it all works out! However, embedded below is a full performance clip of Project 906 covering The Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See", courtesy of attendee Katie Jeffson, so how does it sound?
In our first look at the current Project 906 lineup, we get a solid cover of this southern rock standard here, and it's a bluesy enough number to suit the concert's theme! Solid video quality despite the vertical angle, and you get a good view of everyone, all things considered, so give this video a look below, and see more from this show above!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates on the site as this week rolls along! Thanks everyone!
A new work week is upon us, so here's a new news post for your Monday afternoon! Today, we have some new YouTube video discoveries from a pair of inactive notable groups, special previews for some upcoming matinee concerts, and first, here's a huge LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for early next year!
Muskegon hard rock quintet Pop Evil will return to The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino for their (at least) fifth live appearance here on Wednesday, February 14th! After previously playing this venue in 2010, 2013, and last February (plus The Satisfied Frog in the 2000s), this fan favourite band will return in support of their upcoming self-titled CD, and with rock radio hits like "Footsteps", "Deal With The Devil", and their newest "Waking Lions", you know you'll hear lots of familiar songs on this special Valentine's Day concert to kick off their Music Over Words Tour! Support bands will include Las Vegas/Toronto "fashion-art rock" trio Palaye Royale (not "Palace"), whose indie-tinged, up-tempo brand of rock should get a good reception in February, while San Francisco post-hardcore trio Black Map will open the night with their own high impact brand of alt-metal, so don't be late for their first regional appearances either! As first announced on Rock 101 this morning (and confirmed on their Facebook page), this is the first concert of 2018 from Allstar Promotions.
Tickets for this all ages show at 7:00 PM go on sale this Friday for $25 each at the in-person box office, online at this link, or via 1-800-KEWADIN, though stay tuned to pertinent links in case there's any VIP passes or tiered ticket deals. Kudos to Allstar Promotions for bringing Pop Evil back less than a year after their last show here, and they should deliver another fun night of hard rock action on Valentine's Day, so stay tuned for continued updates!
Next up, here's a special preview for a three-nighter of matinee concerts from local hard rock singer/guitarist Tym Morrison, who plays at Mark's Breakfast Plus at the Market Mall TONIGHT, TOMORROW, and WEDNESDAY! Similar in scope and timing to his weekly Gliss shows (continuing Thursday-Saturday), these three shows were mean that Tym is playing an acoustic restaurant matinee gig for six straight evenings, kicking off at this west end venue before heading downtown on Thursday, so if you like his past early-week shows at the breakfast-centric restaraunt, here you go! Notably, Wednesday's show will be Tym's fourth straight at Mark's, though if he's playing there weekly now, it hasn't been firmly stated publically. Tym's three Mark's shows this week are at 6:00 PM with no announced cover charges or age limits, but remember that this is a restaurant. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and here's Tym live!
Closing today with some new videos, we'll start with some surprise new videos from inactive local Celtic punk quartet Dustin Jones & The Rising Tide's show at the Tracks Pub in Olds, Alberta back in June 2013! YouTube user Casselman Music uploaded 8 videos from this show (plus two of openers Frank Deresti & The Lake Effect) in July as part of a spree of new postings from older concerts in Alberta, so kudos to him for finally putting these online! Coming from The Tide's first tour run out west, these videos all feature Dustin and the Jaaskelainens alongside guest drummer Andrew McMullen (filling in for his Fairmounts/Merves bandmate Mikey Hawdon on this tour), while Frank Deresti also sits in with the guys as a guest banjo player in this footage. The videos include The Rising Tide and guests playing "Tick, Tick, Tock", "My Summer", "Half My Life", "Until We Drop", "Killtop Motel", "Gypsy Wagons", "Molly Malloy", and as embedded below, their eponymous song "Rising Tide", preceded by an intro rendition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525".
These are some of the best videos that I've seen of Dustin and company, with nice smooth video quality and good sound, and the guys are on point from their best older concerts! Frank and Andrew fit in fine too, and these are definitely worth checking out for fans who weren't able to see them on tour four and a half years back! Give these a look above & below!
Lastly, here's some new videos from defunct local alternative/hard rock trio The Din's "Suburban Sendoff" concert at LopLops Lounge last month! These come from Christopher Paci's excellent YouTube channel once again, as finally uploaded yesterday, and while he didn't get anything from openers Bizotic, kudos to him for getting a couple of clips of The Din's last set! Chris filmed them playing their songs "Potato (Should've Known Better)" and, as embedded below, their cover of Haggith's "75" near the end of their set. The angle is pretty jittery here, and fans heads can get in the way, but this was a big show in multiple ways, and it shows that there was a positive turnout and reception! The guys sounded good here, and while it's still a shame to know that this was their farewell, give these videos a watch to relive everything!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes as they come in to the site! Thanks everyone!
At last, we have a showcase post of videos from the two major hard rock concerts earlier this week, as Rock 101's Facebook page has got us covered from both events! Much like The Sault's Rock Station did for the recent Theory of a Deadman show (they were presenting sponsors for all three), a station staffer had their camera rolling for both Tuesday's Big Wreck concert at The Machine Shop and Wednesday's Pop Evil concert at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino, with videos making their way to their Facebook page during each. We'll get into their Big Wreck footage in an upcoming post, but there's enough from Pop Evil alone to fill a whole post today, so let's start with the headlining Muskegon hard rock quintet! Rock 101 filmed Pop Evil playing their recent hit singles "Waking Lions" and, as embedded below, the much longer "Boss' Daughter". Compared to the prior YouTube clips from this show, the quality is much better despite the distant camera angle from the stage, and the crowd turnout is solid, so give these a look above & below!
