Algoma Hope4Haiti At Nite-Life Review, Plus More From The Event!

Greetings everyone, hope you were all somewhere last night for Algoma Hope4Haiti! As you probably would figure, I was at Nite-Life last night for their portion of the event, so here's my review and what you need to know from there!

Firstly, I should discuss Nite-Life Dance Club, which hosted just it's second metal show last night, so it's not a venue a lot of metalheads have hit since The Other Place was remodeled under new ownership. This was my first time there under any case, and I was impressed by it! Come through the doors and there's an upper level right in front, and the bar's right there on your left! The walls are mostly lined with mirrors, which is interesting decor, though the flash on cameras doesn't mesh well with them. The floor has those cool colour changing lighted strips, however you refer to them! There's lots of tables and chairs and a pool table too! And that thing on the wall with the spinning Budweiser bottle is an eye grabber...yeah, I'm odd. I'm impressed with Nite-Life, they've put a lot of work into this, hopefully it succeeds where The Other Place and GLOW failed! (Oh, and they have a new Facebook page, click here to check it out!)

Opening the night's concert festivities was Out Of The Mouth Of Babes, in their live concert debut! However, you'll recognize 4/5ths of the band from the defunct local hardcore band As It Stands, and as a unit, those 4 have not performed live in over a year! As such, As It Stands comparisons will be inevitable, but this is an entirely new band, they didn't even cover any As It Stands songs last night! New frontman Matt Maccarone (who replaced Josh McNally behind the mic) shown off his very good hardcore singing last night! I hadn't heard from him in a long while, nice to see him in a heavier band than his older more screamo stuff! Also, his stage presence was excellent, he kept everyone moving! Compared to Justin Pregent (As It Stands' singer), I think his screaming is a bit higher pitched, and he seems more at ease with clean vocals, which is cool! Though I still miss Justin, Matt should prove to be a great addition! The rest of the band were solid, Garrett Masters surprised me with his guitar solo, he should play those more often!

The set wasn't without problems though, as Angelo Huckson had some bass issues on two songs: It wasn't plugged in for one, and it came unplugged on another, but for a first show back after over a year, I'm more than forgiving! Even still, the band have really good chemistry, after playing together for so long, you'd expect that! They played mostly new songs (including an instrumental), along with (curiously) a Carrie Underwood cover, but their set ran short for me. I actually feel that they should cover some As It Stands songs, maybe some A Fall From Innocence songs too, it'd both fill in their set more, and draw in fans of both bands to see this new group if they heard old classics like "Bush Raids" and "Angles Of A Casket" were being played! Nice solid hardcore sound, you don't hear it much live anymore, so hopefully they'll be back soon to fill the void! Maybe we'll get an old school all ages show at The Oddfellows Hall? Those don't happen nearly enough. Thumbs up from me, and thanks for flipping me off Angelo, it makes a great picture!

Not long after, Bring The Fallen hit the stage, and they were awesome! This prominent death metal band brought the goods once again! They opened with their cover of All That Remains' "This Calling" before switching to a setlist full of their originals! Josh Stephney's vocals are still as brutal as ever, my throat hurts just watching him growl like that! Andrew Chiarello was awesome on guitar, his solos have always impressed me! Same for Dan Souliere, he was great on guitar and backing vocals, though I do miss his hair! Nolan Rainville has got to be the best on-stage headbanger among local musicians, and his bass work was solid as well, while Travis St. Amour kept up nicely on drums! Josh tried his best to get pits going, but for some reason, a decent sized crowd mostly stayed away from the floor. Are death metal and mosh pits that evil? Who doesn't want to mosh for a good cause?

Again, like with Out Of The Mouth Of Babes, I'd really have liked a longer set from Bring The Fallen, but for what I got, I enjoyed it immensely! Instead, the bands were done around 11:00 PM, with DJ Spruceau hitting the stage last. We all thought he was opening with the bands after, but hey, whatever works for Nite-Life! This has to be the earliest I've been done a local show since Three Days Grace, but for a great cause like Haiti, it was more than worth it! Hopefully both bands will be back real soon, I'll wanna see both live once again! As you can tell, I got photos from the whole concert, click here to check them out, or visit the SMS' Facebook page! And yes, I got video, so check these out! First, it's Out Of The Mouth Of Babes' cover of Carrie Underwood's "Last Name" (Personally, it's a vast improvement, even with technical difficulties!), and then, Bring The Fallen's awesome original, "Defiling Despondence"!





So that's what happened at Nite-Life last night! No word has emerged yet concerning how much money was raised, but I sincerely hope it's a nice amount, Haiti needs all the post-earthquake help it can get! FYI, the door prize at Nite-Life last night was dinner for two at Cafe Natura on Elgin Street. I don't know who won, but hopefully the winner enjoys their prize! I'm not sure when we'll get word on what happened at the other venues last night, but I'd expect that soon! As for Friday's Hope4Haiti festivities on Friday, I can tell you a bit about that, as there is an article on SooToday about what happened Friday night! Carol Martin from SooToday discussed the event, including the work Donna Hopper put into this event, and all that the locals did to donate for the cause! I can confirm that the silent art auction at LopLops went on as planned too. There's a photo album with the article too, including live shots of That's Chester & Kathy O'Neill, along with various photos of the fans and musicians that played, including Brian from Gates of Winter, and many more!

As for the ongoing saga of just what would happen at Coch's Corner, here's the timeline: At first, we didn't know who would be playing. Then we heard it'd be Sense of Truth and The Fury. Then Sense of Truth dropped out and were replaced by Caveman Morrison. Then The Fury were announced as not participating, after which Caveman Morrison cancelled. Then Coch's Corner announced it'd be a jam night, and that's what I last heard before the concert. Well, as it turns out, Coch's Corner instead played host to a Tym Morrison acoustic solo set! I bet that would have been fun! I likely would have swung by after Bring The Fallen wrapped up, had I known. The night was still young, after all! I guess I should apologize for missing the announcement of Tym playing there solo, but in all fairness, no one really knew he'd be playing a set until I was already at Nite-Life. Just figured you guys would wanna know. If you were there, I hope you had a great time!

Now I do have more news, but we'll let that be in my next post. All in all, I hope Algoma Hope4Haiti was a huge success, I wanna thank Donna Hopper and The Sault Youth Association immensely for putting all this work and effort in to help the Haitians out in their time of need, their hearts and minds were totally in the right place, and the work they put in should not be forgotten! If I hear anything else coming out of Algoma Hope4Haiti (especially concerning Turner Up or Tym Morrison), I'll have it right here for you guys! Thanks everyone, more news to come!