LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Bone Yard, The Nostalgic Band, And Tarnished), Weekend Concert Previews, And More!!

With the Northern Vibe Festival previewed yesterday, let's dive into this weekend's local concert previews within Sault Ste. Marie city limit(s), and as luck would have it, the last weekend of August is mostly comprised of SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS as far as heavier-leaning acts go, plus a new video of one of the bands in question. To avoid pushing the new Saturday nighter below to another day-of preview, this preview post is slightly longer than normal, so hopefully everything is covered, and with all of that said, here's what you should know!

Sault Michigan metal band Tarnished will return to The Merchants Bar for one night only TONIGHT! Apologies for the short notice, the band only announced this show via their Facebook page yesterday, and The Merch scarcely advertise shows booked there online. TONIGHT's concert will be Tarnished's first at the West Spruce Street nightclub in just over a month, and will be their third since their lineup split in two earlier this month, though no word on which guitarist & bassist will join Alex & Josh TONIGHT (for reference, last week's shows in Rudyard and Cedarville featured guests Chris Hubbard and Mike East). Remember too that Tarnished started off with Alex & Josh playing two man acoustic gigs, so if all else failed, they could fall back on that. TONIGHT'S gig at The Merch has a 9:00 PM start time, 21+ age limit, and no cover charge. See above for more details, and here's Tarnished live!

Next up, let's head across to Sault Ontario, where local classic metal cover trio The Nostalgic Band will take the stage at Jay's Piston Broke Pub TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT! Again, apologies for the short notice, these shows were only announced via their Facebook event page on Tuesday. Last seen at Reggie's two weeks ago, TONIGHT & TOMORROW'S Jay's dates will be Tym, Dutch, and Chet's first shows at the former Reggie's West in almost a month. Hopefully their old school metal and hard rock covers get another strong reaction this weekend! TONIGHT & TOMORROW'S concerts have 9:30 PM start times, 19+ age limits, and no cover charges. See above for more details, and for a preview, here's a new video featuring The Nostalgic Band live! This was shot for bassist Randy "Dutch" Vanderploeg's YouTube channel Randy's Rides, and it features footage from two gigs, so what should you know?

Shot on July 27th & 28th, the video features Randy heading to and playing at Jay's on the 27th, and we get under a minute of their cover of Ratt's "Round & Round", preceded by footage of them setting up at the venue. That show was a one-nighter due to a private gig in "the bush" at a local resort's customer appreciation day, and we see the ride up for that and footage of Dutch exploring the area. If you recall their (sadly) deleted video of them covering Deep Purple's "Highway Star" at a private gig, then you will like that this was that gig, and the footage returns here.... partially, as the beginning of a montage of clips from their set that night. I wish that they'd have left the full "Highway Star" video on Facebook (even with the zooming), but it's neat getting full context as to that gig, and the voyage is as fun as the destination! Check it out below, and don't miss The Nostalgic Band back at Jay's  Piston Broke Pub TONIGHT & TOMORROW!

Also newly announced for this weekend, local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard will return to Gateway Casino TOMORROW NIGHT for an acoustic gig! Apologies again for the short notice, the band only announced this show on their Facebook page on Wednesday, and at press time, the casino has not acknowledged live entertainment for this weekend on social media. This will be Bone Yard's first stop at the casino since June in a show that was also unplugged, despite initial venue advertising that it was for The Bearded Lounge, their Warren-less acoustic side project. I don't know if this is an intentional choice to switch things up again, or if they've quietly retired The Bearded Lounge in lieu of keeping the Bone Yard name for all gigs and to include Warren in them, but note that The Bearded Lounge did plug the Dragonfly Run (which Bone Yard headlined) on Facebook in July.

If The Bearded Lounge's active status is clarified, we'll let you know, but if you like them, you'll obviously like Bone Yard unplugged TOMORROW NIGHT! Expect an 8:00 PM start time, 19+ age limit, and no cover charge at Gateway Casino for this one-nighter. Visit the above links for more details, and here's Bone Yard live and unplugged!

We'll close today's weekend concert previews with a show that did have advance notice, as Nostalgic Band frontman Tym Morrison will play the last advertised show of his summer series at The Mike Case Memorial Stage outside of The Trading Post TONIGHT! This is the seventh Friday evening gig of the year for Tym at the outdoor stage way down Great Northern Road, and while there's no listed bookings for September, his series there last year did continue into September for a couple of weeks. We'll let you know when/if he publically extends things again, but the Mike Case stage is definitely seasonal and closes before October. As has usually been the case this summer, Tym's show tonight does precede his Jay's show with The Nostalgic Band TONIGHT, so he'll zip to the west end post-show for more classic/hard rock cover action! Beforehand, he's on at 7:00 PM with no cover or age limit.

Weather-wise, 9&10 News is calling for mostly cloudy weather in the 18° range with light rain likely in the second half of the show. Tym's show here two weeks ago was cancelled due to rain, and while the forecast tonight is better than what Northern Vibe attendees are expecting an hour east, be prepared just in case. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, whether this is his 2023 finale here or not, and here's Tym live at The Mike Case Stage earlier this year!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this weekend! Thanks everyone!

Rotaryfest 2018 Fallout & Videos, Plus Treble Charger Updates!!

At long last, here is our Rotaryfest fallout post concerning musical action on Stages 1 & 2, so what is there to say from this year's installment of the Soo's summer festival? Well, let's start with local news coverage, starting with Stage 2 presenting sponsors SooToday, they were definitely on hand for this year's Rotaryfest, with correspondent James Hopkin getting 18 quality photos of Thursday night acts on both stages for this article, including some identical acts as Brian Kelly's Sault Star album (more on that soon.) Donna Hopper was on hand for Treble Charger's headlining set on Friday, snapping 18 photos of the local/Toronto indie/punk veterans for this article, while also including some remarks on the set. Bill reportedly introduced their performance of their song "Drive" by noting that it was "the last song on our last album ("Detox"), but it might not be our last album."

There had been scattered teasers in recent years that Treble Charger were planning to record a new album, so is this more fuel for the fire, or just a hopeful nudge? Donna's photos are predictably excellent, so give hers and James' a look above, and we'll have more local news coverage soon!

Video-wise, there isn't as much currently online as you may expect, but hopefully that will change. Of course, Sault Online haven't posted videos of the full Stage 1 lineup since 2016, though maybe with their new ONNtv service, there's some exclusive content there? Also, keep in mind the rainy conditions that persisted on Saturday, which may have impaired many Rotaryfest attendees' efforts to attempt filming certain bands. There is a SooToday video, but we'll hold that for our next post to spread things out, as there is a YouTube channel with a couple of concert videos from Rotaryfest weekend to cover! These come from veteran local musician Randy "Dutch" Vanderploeg (of Browbeat, Nikkfitt, and Caveman Morrison fame), who has recently been vlogging for his channel Randy's Rides, where he takes his e-bike around the city to tell stories about the city and showcase it's sights. Great idea, I'll definitely have to see more of his videos!

Randy posted three videos from the festival on YouTube, with the first largely focused on his ride to the festival and his footage from the car show, with the only musical tie being some video of the Saturday lineup announcement on Stage 1. His first video with a musical performance is of the aforementioned Treble Charger playing their opening song "How She Died" on Friday, though there was an odd moment where the MC was corrected as to who's drumming for Treble Charger. The festival program credited Richard Mulligan as their current live drummer, seemingly backing up Wikipedia edits, but their actual drummer on Friday was prolific London musician Ian MacKay, who also played with Treble Charger in Brantford last summer. Is Richard just a studio musician, or is their Wikipedia page just a victim of unsourced updates? For what it's worth, Wikipedia also says that Rosie Martin's back on bass, even though Darcy Yates played at Rotaryfest as advertised.

Maybe Greig or Bill should do one of those "Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction" videos? In any event, Randy's video is solid and captures Treble Charger in fine form, with Dutch at a good close angle of the band, so fans will be well served to check this video out below!



Randy's other video is of Rotaryfest on Saturday, which he had intended to be longer and more all-encompassing, particularly with footage of The Stampeders, but the heavy rain wrecked those plans, which I can fully relate with! However, he did film a video of local funk/hard rock quartet The Elements (and guest saxophonist Josh Norling) playing an apparent original song that afternoon on the Second Stage from two different angles. Remember, Dutch & bassist James White were long-time bandmates. The far angle of the whole stage is much better than the close-up angle for audio quality (I fear that the rain was partly to blame with it), but luckily, that's only the view for under 40 seconds. As for the song proper, it's a solid mid-tempo number with a casual feel balanced out by gritty low singing from Rob Speers, so fans will want to check it out below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more Rotaryfest fallout and other news in the coming days! Thanks everyone!