LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Turner Up), More Local Videos, And Rush In The Soo?!

The news keeps flying in, and luckily, we'll get back to talk of local metal and hard rock bands today! If you were expecting more Kiss updates, I do have some, but I'm postponing that until later today or tomorrow, just to focus mostly on local bands today. Before we start, just a quick look at what to expect in the next few days: Tomorrow will feature previews of this weekend's concerts, I'm tabling Friday for a possible news post (if I have enough stories), and Saturday will have my reviews of the concerts I hit on Friday (Downtown Showdown and Phatstick, if you forgot.) Now, we'll begin with a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!!

Thanks to the Facebook statuses of Len Ward and Jeff Gray for this: Local hard rock cover band Turner Up are back for another show THIS WEEKEND, and yes, that is in the singular! Rather than their standard pair of weekend shows, the band are playing just one concert this weekend, at a slightly unconventional venue, at a strange time to boot! On Saturday night, Turner Up will be headlining at The Royal Canadian Legion on Great Northern Road (across from A&W), with a start time of 8:30 PM! The Legion is mostly known for hosting country bands, but they have flirted with heavier bands on occasion, notably being the planned host for a Garden of Bedlam all ages show last year before it was indefinitely postponed. No cover charge for Turner Up's show has been announced, and I don't know if this show specifically is all ages or not. I wish the band made up event pages on Facebook again, they'd likely tell us more! According to Len Ward, the band really needs our support for this show, so there must be a more special/one-off significance to it. I'd go if I was free, but I have tickets for Sault Area Wrestling that night, so I can't make it, but if you guys wanna hear some great hard rock covers, head on out to The Legion on Saturday! And again, my apologies for the short notice, I only found out about this concert yesterday.

Three new videos to share with you guys in this update, so get yourselves ready! Firstly, we finally have new audio to share from local metal band Silver Dream! If you've been wondering why we haven't heard much from them in recent weeks, it's part their originality in issuing band updates, and partly my own ignorance. Frontman Matthew Silver does frequently update people on Facebook on Silver Dream's status and progress, but not through typical means. He actually issues them in pictures, uploading image files onto Facebook with many different band updates, ranging from songwriting to how they're doing in jam sessions, to even song lyrics! It's unconventional, which I applaud, but also hard to keep track of when searching for news and updates. To sum things up, they are close to playing live! The band are currently working on 10 originals for their live set (and presumably their first album, which they want to release sooner rather than later.) They haven't played live yet due to some outside problems, but hope to soon! Click here to check out Matthew's photos, where he has posted these updates, along with some other goodies from when he first started working on this band project to now!

That being said, Matthew uploaded the first public Silver Dream demo onto his YouTube channel! This really reminds me of a slower hair metal song from the '80s, and that's not a bad comment! I like his voice, his singing ability we've seen at his solo shows really comes through! Nicely mixed too, this sounds like it could be on an album already! However, I'd love to hear some heavier stuff from Silver Dream too, but this'll do for the time being! Check it out below, and thanks to Matthew for taking my advice to upload it to YouTube! Facebook Video's alright, but they don't let you embed videos on external sites, which can be bothersome. No matter, here's your first taste of Silver Dream!



Next up, we have new video online of Nixxon Dixxon to share! YouTube user myangels1266 has uploaded two new clips of the Sault Michigan hard rockers from their show this past Sunday at The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino! The audio is fantastic on both, but the stage lighting hurts the video, you can't even see Chris or Kyle's heads most of the time! Aside from that, the videos are great, now how about the music? One video has the band covering the Van Halen classic "And The Cradle Will Rock...", which really turns out well, they played this almost to a T! Chris Hubbard continues to impress on guitar especially, he's a guitarist to watch out for! The other video, which I've embedded below, has the band covering the Ozzy Osbourne classic "No More Tears"! Aside from a bit of patchy vocals, I have no complaints! Great singing, great instrumentation, I see big things in Nixxon Dixxon's future! Check out "No More Tears" below, and more live videos from the band at this location!



Today's last video comes courtesy of Stillbroke, or, half of Stillbroke! A new video has been uploaded to the band's YouTube channel featuring frontman Jesse Frigault and new guitarist Chris Villeneuve performing a new song called "I Don't Wanna Say Goodbye"! It sounds like a hybrid of their heavier and softer material, it's a good mix! Nice to see some solo work from Chris in here, and the presence of a bit of a solo duel as well, that'll be interesting to see live! Jesse, as always, sings with a mix of passion and aggressiveness that works really well, and the lyrics are good too! Check it out below, and click here for more Stillbroke videos!



And finally for today, you know how Canadian rock legends Rush played in Sault Ste. Marie in the 1970s? Well, if you're a fan of Rush, here's a treat. Local drummer Glen Thomas has uploaded two photos from Rush's show at Sault Memorial Gardens in 1975 onto his new local music news site The Barking Eye, and you can check his post about them at this location! This picture is one of the two he uploaded, of Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart in action at the show! Glen also shared some interesting tidbits on Rush's local appearance, including the fact that they played here more than once, they were quite LOUD (as he intentionally capitalized), and their stage setup at the time included shag carpeting! Rush have got to be the biggest Canadian band to have not played here in the last 30 years, and Glen surmised that it might be because of their massive current stage setup. Maybe, but I'm sure they could scale it down if they did a smaller tour and knew there was demand here! Glen noted that he also sent these pictures to "Castle Stories" author Duane Roy for inclusion in his upcoming book about concerts at Sault Memorial Gardens, which is really cool! Check the above links for more, and cross your fingers that one of these days, Rush will come back!

Alright, that's all for now! I just realized that maybe I shouldn't promise certain things to watch out for in my next update, cause there was a few things not in this update. Well, I guarantee these are coming either later today or tomorrow: Updates on the Kiss show (or lack thereof), Energy Rock Radio, and WinkStinger! Stay tuned!