Sault Michigan Metal Video Showcase, Including The First Queensryche Videos!!

It's time for our first local metal video showcase of the month, and for our Yooper readers, this post entirely deals with bands and shows across the river! Today's post includes the latest video from a Kinross hard rock band and some recent archive uploads to tie in with a feature profile on the SMS, but first, here's your first glimpses at a major recent concert!

The first known YouTube videos from Saturday night's Queensryche concert were just posted tonight, and are now available to watch! These come courtesy of YouTube user danykins77, and while I can't confirm that these are from The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino through there, the members' clothes match up with photos that I've seen from Saturday's concert, so I think I have the right dots connected. Three videos have been posted so far by danykins77, including Queensryche's performances of "I Don't Believe In Love" & (as embedded below) "Silent Lucidity", along with one extra one we'll mention in a second, and the quality isn't too bad! The camera angle is close to the action, and the guys sound good, if at the mercy of somewhat loud & distorted audio at points. Solid all around though, so give Queensryche's performance of "Silent Lucidity" a look below, and check out more full songs above!



The other new video from danykins77 is this short clip of Queensryche drummer Scott Rockenfield talking to the crowd, where he talks about the struggles of 2012, works around some lively fans, and introduces current singer Todd La Torre, before playing a few more songs. This sounds like it came before their encore on Saturday, but I'm not positive. You don't see a whole lot of stage banter videos like this, but it's a cool clip all the same, so check out Scott talking to the Soo crowd below, and stay tuned for more local Queensryche videos as they roll in!



Also today, we have the newest video from Kinross hard rockers Banned to check out! Uploaded to Ashley Traynor's YouTube channel last week, this is of their cover of J.J. Cale's "Cocaine" (later popularized by Eric Clapton) at Todd's Tavern in Moran, Michigan on New Year's Eve, and it marks their second straight public video to be filmed by Eric Cairns of Third Cinema Productions rather than Ashley herself. Featuring drummer Don Traynor on lead vocals ("occasional singer" Mike Straw is absent), this video confirms that guitarist Alex Schrovenwever was back with Banned for this show while home from college over the holidays, and it's great to see him back with the guys, even if for just one weekend! This is a well done cover, and Don's vocals suit it well, but I'd like to see some heavier covers filmed again, rather than just general & classic rock from the past few months. Very well filmed too, albeit with overpowering lighting, so give Banned's newest video a look below!

Finally for today, I wanted to mention some recent uploads on our YouTube channel that could use some extra notice. Last week, we profiled defunct Pickford hard rock quartet Absolute in our Defunct Local Band Profile Series, and as I often do with the bands we randomly pick for it, I posted some archive material of theirs on YouTube to share with readers and fans. However, the video I embedded on the profile was their only known original song "Native Tongue", which has been on YouTube since 2011, so the newer YouTube uploads didn't get a spotlight... until now! Last week, I uploaded Absolute's three most viewed 2008-2009 live cover videos from their MySpace page (Theory of a Deadman's "Hate My Life", Sublime's "Santeria", and Godsmack's "Whatever") onto YouTube, alongside three of their four most heard audio files (The Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under The Bridge", Ugly Kid Joe's "Everything About You", and Seether's "Fake It"), so click each link to check them out! Note that they had a popular audio demo of "Whatever" too, but I didn't post that last week because a live video of that song went up already.

There's much more Absolute media files that could go on YouTube, but I didn't wanna go into overkill last week, so hopefully we'll get a chance to share those songs there as well down the road! These are nice and widely varied performances from Absolute's heyday, and though the videos are of mixed quality, the audio demos are pretty well done! The members all seem to flow well musically, though Donny Newell's vocals don't always suit lighter material. I've embedded their cover of "Whatever" below, but check out the rest of the files above, and hopefully we'll see the members of Absolute back in a new band in the future!



That's likely all for today, but stay tuned for a new news post likely tomorrow, including some Sault Ontario stuff! Thanks everyone!