LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (As It Stands & Banned) Plus More Assorted News!!

Alright, I wasn't expecting to have another post so soon (I was gonna wait until tonight or early tomorrow), but a SHORT NOTICE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT has came to my attention, so I'm gonna get a new news post in this afternoon so we can properly preview it. We also have some more new shows (including the first details from an annual festival), a new band on an upcoming all ages concert, and an interesting note I wanted to make leading from a battle of the bands that took place a few years ago. So here's what you need to know for today (and check out my news post from this morning featuring some HUGE new shows and some new videos in the post below!)

One night after rocking The Roosevelt Hotel, local hardcore quintet As It Stands will play a solo concert TONIGHT at Foggy Notions! Apologies for the short notice, this was only just announced earlier today. As It Stands are helping out to replace a previously scheduled band who cancelled tonight, though I admit not knowing who was originally scheduled. Nice of them to fill in, cause their metalcore sounds are awesome no matter how much advance word you get! They'll be on at 10:00 PM tonight, there will be a 19+ age limit, and though no cover charge is announced, bring cash just in case. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Should be a good concert, and you know As It Stands bring it every time they take the stage, so definitely consider hitting this show TONIGHT! For a preview, here's many clips of As It Stands' set at the Dead & Divine concert at The Oddfellows Hall in April!



Meanwhile, Kinross hard rock trio Banned have announced their next two local concerts, fresh off a successful debut in Rudyard last weekend! The Sault Michigan-area rockers will first hit The Sundown Lounge in nearby Pickford on August 6th (one week from tomorrow) for a solo concert at 9:30 PM! Should be interesting to see how they do in a bar environment, though I'm largely unfamiliar with The Sundown Lounge as a concert venue. For reference sake, it's address is 18664 S M 129 (yes, that is it.) There's no announced cover charge, and it's a 21+ event, so keep all of this in mind! Then, the band announced that they'll be among the lineup at this year's Sugar Island Music Festival, which celebrates it's 10th anniversary this year! They announced they'd be playing at 6:00 PM on August 12th (two weeks from today), but a full lineup has not been announced yet. Some bands are confirmed as per this link, the vast majority of which fall into non-metal categories, but local hard rock quartet Free Refill are confirmed once again for this year! (Banned are not listed officially yet though.) Nice to see Free Refill back for this year, I was wondering when they'd come back!

Now judging by last year's schedule, the heavier bands will all likely play on the Friday, with the folksier softer bands taking up the weekend lineups, but who knows if that will stick this year. Admission will be $10 for a 3 day pass or $6 for a single day, with kids entering free. Click here for more information! Nice to see the Sugar Island Festival back, hopefully the 10th anniversary is a huge success! Stay tuned to the SMS for further festival details as I hear them, along with Banned's show next week in Pickford!

Next up, here's the latest lineup updates concerning the Smeltzer reunion concert at August 12th at The Oddfellows Hall (which also features metal openers!) It looks like the show will have 6 bands in total, as promoters have added one more and are looking for a final band to round things out. The newly added band is local grimecore trio Shit Liver, in their first local show since their summer break began in late June! A booking could pop up before then, but currently, this will be their return to the local stage. Fans of crusty and grimy death metal should take note, as Shit Liver will soon be back to melt your faces! The other remaining band slot is still open, so contact the promoters linked on the Facebook event page if you're interested in possibly playing. I can say that the page briefly listed Winkstinger as the openers via a now deleted event poster (I'm 100% positive I saw that), but they appear to be out. I assumed that we might see a Fury reunion due to their own Smeltzer connection, but that doesn't appear to be in the cards either. Stay tuned for updates on the lineup for this ALL AGES show, also featuring The Bear Hunters, RedD Monkey, and The Tenagens!

And finally, with news of Skid Row's local return in November, it got me wondering about a Skid Row-related event that took place here 3 years ago. You may remember that on April 26th, 2008, seven local bands gathered at The Speak Easy at Algoma University for the chance to win $500 and open for Skid Row that June! I won't reference that aborted concert here, I don't wanna dredge up bad memories, but what got me thinking was the local bands that competed for the right to open for Skid Row. Over three years later, what happened to them? Shockingly enough, only two of them are still together right now, and neither have played a local concert in over a year! Ironically, the two active bands are metal, those being battle winners Sense of Truth (who actually made their live debut at this show) and extreme metal duo Sue Inside. Sense of Truth were last seen on stage last May, having been busy with personal commitments & EP artwork issues since then, but hopefully they'll return soon! Sue Inside frontman Shane Lipsit-Fraser moved to Oil Springs, Ontario in mid-2009, taking the band with him, and they haven't played a local show since, though he still posts new material on band pages. The other five bands, believe it or not, are either broken up or long since inactive.

Runners-up The Scary Uncles disbanded in December, third place band Free Beer have been mostly inactive since the summer of 2009 (they did have a one-off reunion earlier this year though), and I've heard nothing from fourth place band The Blockade, indie rockers Terminal, or Red Hot Chili Peppers cover band Sikamikanico since 2008, though only Terminal seemed to confirm that they actually broke up. I just found it interesting that of the 7 bands competing to open for Skid Row in 2008, only 2 seem to be alive, and none are active and gigging locally right now. Still, I was there for this battle (it was all ages) and it was fun seeing these bands (many of which I was unfamiliar with at the time) rocking out for a big prize! After the show, SooToday posted an article featuring photos and videos from the battle courtesy of Donna Hopper and Tyler Simpson, and you can see it all at this location! I embedded the video with parts of each band's sets below for you guys to check out, and for metal's sake, Sue Inside are at 3:24 of the video with Sense of Truth immediately following. Solid stuff, so take a trip down memory lane below!



That's all for now, but stay tuned tomorrow (hopefully) for a new news post featuring some more local metal and hard rock news and updates! Thanks everyone!