2012 Soo Zombie Walk Afterparty Review!!

For the first time since August, we have a concert review at the SMS, and it's been waaaaay too long for one of these! Last night was the third annual Soo Zombie Walk afterparty was held at The Grand Theater following the fourth annual local zombie walk, and while I held up my word and went to the afterparty, I regrettably skipped the zombie walk itself due to a cold I've been battling. Sapped energy and laryngitis and all of that, but rather than whine about my personal bad timing, let's talk about the show itself! I arrived (with zombie costume) at around 8:30 PM last night during a showing of the first horror movie, "White Zombie", which seemed to have really bad acting and a more drawn out story, but to be fair, I didn't see the whole thing. The attendance was medium at best, and it seemed to drop more as the night went on, which I would honestly blame partly on the movie. If you'd started the bands right after the awards instead of putting a very old movie on for an hour in between, maybe more people would have stuck around?

The opening band was new local grunge quartet Haggith in their Grand Theater debut, and the guys (except drummer Mike Haggith) had their best zombie makeup on for the occasion! Their set last night was mostly unfamiliar from past posted material of theirs, as they debuted five new songs from their planned third album "Apocalypse" (which is fittingly zombie-themed) for the occasion, though they did close with the previously revealed "Leon the Janitor". Last night probably wasn't the best night for me to judge bands given the ill haze I was in, but Haggith sounded good and varied in their alternative/grunge attack, with heavy moments mixed with some softer and dark sounding passages! Curtis McKenzie & Mike both shown some diversity and flavour in their singing, and though they didn't seem as comfortable as I expected on stage, Daniel Horton had some good energy on guitar himself! They also impressed with an already vocal and loyal group of fans, and it's deserved so far, but I wanna hear a longer set with more of their released material before I make any major assumptions. Very solid start though!

Second on the band roster was local "blue Chinese metal crash punk" quartet Sykotyk Rampage! and in terms of their lineup, former The Fury bassist Tony Briglio was there last night filling in for Brian Cattapan for a second straight concert, and he added well for their set, especially when compared to last year's bass-less set at the previous afterparty! Their set last night was neatly divided between their drinking songs (including their crowd favourite rendition of "Fuck You, I'm Drunk") and a selection of non-drinking originals (including "Acreage") that they lyrically modified to feature zombie references, which fit the theme of the night! At least that factors in zombies into their live set, as even if they played songs from their "Zombiez" album, there'd be no connection beyond the song titles. Musically, they sounded at their sykotyk best, with Paul Becker's husky barking fitting well over Shane Kokis & Dirk Becker's alternative riffs, but I missed Dirk-sung originals, and there was some odd audio glitches that made it sound like they were being censored at times. Overall though, Sykotyk Rampage were fun, as always!

Headlining the band portion was local horror punk/metal quintet Frightlight in their own Grand Theater debut, and just in case anyone was wondering about lineup rumours, their full lineup was present yesterday. However, Redundant guitarist Justin Langlois will be filling in for Kevin "St. Mayhem" Powe for their Toronto date opening for The Misfits on Thursday, so keep that in mind if you're going! As for their set last night, there was no real surprises, as the guys pumped out their familiar and entertaining originals along with their cover of Fitswitch's "Rust Angel" and some Misfits covers that got the remaining crowd members going effectively! My only real qualms with Frightlight's set was that some later songs had some timing mess-ups (especially on "World War Z", and frontman Johnny Pints' voice was starting to go a bit late as well, but they started strong and still ended strong, and they had a lot of fun and seasonably suited material to rock out with! It's a big month for the Frightlight camp, with the Misfits show and the Halloween Party this weekend, so the best is yet to come, but you missed out if you weren't there last night for their set!

Overall, this was a fun night of music, and nice to see after such a long time, but I wish I wasn't under the weather so I could better enjoy it all. For the record, I briefly saw part of The Salty Mollies set (now I can say I saw Beaker from The Muppet Show stripping?!), but I didn't stay for the DJ (not really my thing, but hopefully the remaining zombies had fun!) Hopefully I'm feeling better by Saturday (and for the next Zombie Walk), but the music worked for me, and I got lots of photos, so click here to check them out or visit our Facebook page! And I did get some videos, so here's Haggith playing both parts of their song "Fin", Sykotyk Rampage playing their version of The Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" (or, "Roll A Doobie"), and Frightlight playing their song "She Screams"!







That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news this week, including this month's YouTube Channel Profiles tomorrow! Thanks everyone!