Sunday, December 31, 2017

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Spun), Soundcheck Concert Preview, And More News & Notes

Here's our final news post of the year, so what will you find here? Big updates from a local punk band, some assorted recent news and notes, and a preview of the final hard rock show in the Soo this year, but first, here's LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for next month!

Marquette hard rock cover quartet Spun will make their way to Sault Michigan for the first times in 2018 when they hit The Satisfied Frog again on Friday, January 26th & Saturday, January 27th! After a busy first year for the Nudge. successors both here and out west, Spun will be making their first Soo stops since rocking the same venue two weeks ago. This talented outfit have already became fast favourites for Frog patrons in the past year, and hopefully next month's shows are the first of many there for Spun in the new year! As usual for their local gigs, these concerts will take place at 9:00 PM both nights, you must be at least 21 years old to attend, and there are no announced cover charges. Spun' hard rock covers should be a great way to warm up next month, so keep these in mind for in four weeks' time, and visit the official Facebook event page for more details!

Next up, here's (surprisingly) our only hard rock concert preview for New Year's Eve, making this our last preview of 2017, as Sault Ontario classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck will cap the year by headlining at The Esquire Club for their New Year's Party TONIGHT! This will be the Mourning Wood successors' first show at this west end venue in about a month and a half, and will also be the second time that they've played a New Year's Eve bash, doing the same at The Rednecks Saloon last year under their original moniker Nameus. (FYI, Obsession played The Esquire Club last year.) Given that this is a New Year's bash, expect frills like extra food and drink items and party favours and the like, as bars often go all out to ring in a new year, so mind that when you notice that the admission fee is $20. However, Soundcheck noted on their Facebook event page that admission includes your ride back home, and while I don't know specifics of that promotion, it's nice for those that need it after a night of partying!

As you might expect, this is a 19+ concert and a 9:30 PM start time is advertised. This should be a fun concert to end the year with, especially as it's your best bet for a hard rock show tonight in the area, so check the above links for more details, and hopefully some public videos of theirs turn up!

Also today, here's the latest from local punk rockers Redundant, who have been very quiet since their set-turned-solo performance at Rock 4 Autism in May, so what's new to report from their camp? First, they're expanding to a quartet, as they announced the addition of guitarist Yannick Casavant to their lineup via their Facebook page on Christmas Eve. I'm not overly familiar with Yannick musically, but I believe that he has band experience going way back, and hopefully he fits in nicely with Justin and the White brothers going forward! His local debut with Redundant is to be confirmed, but the guys made a huge announcement on Facebook the next day, as they've apparently been added to the lineup for the Vans Warped Tour's final stop in Toronto on July 17th! If The Rising Tide can play the long running punk festival tour, why not Redundant? I haven't seen a formal lineup announcement yet, but this will be a huge opportunity for the guys, and hopefully we hear much more from Redundant in 2018!

Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist, benefactor, or company name:

  • I have unfortunately deleted Eclipse frontman Curtis McKenzie's solo project from our active band links due to it's Facebook page being taken down at some point in the past few months, and I don't believe there is an alternate page elsewhere. This seems to imply that Curt has shuttered his 2017 solo activity, which is very disappointing, as his shows at The Vape Escape and elsewhere seemed to be going well! Hopefully we see him back out there (with or without Eclipse) in the near future!
  • A benefit concert has been announced to help local resident Joni Radford's battle with breast cancer, which will take place on Saturday, January 13th at The Canadian Nightclub. While a performer lineup hasn't been announced at press time, Jack Spades frontman J.D. Pearce commented on the Facebook event page that they have a "couple (of) rad bands so far." Stay tuned for updates on this benefit when bands are publically confirmed for it, and our best wishes are with Joni at this difficult time!
  • In an addendum to the drumkit dive incident during Stegadeth's set at the Guy Thiffault Memorial Concert on Wednesday, Live705's Facebook page has shared the multi-camera video of what happened, as filmed by Id Iota's Christian Lemay, presumably for future Shaw TV content. I won't embed the video here out of respect to the nature of what happened and to not single out anyone publically any more than social media already has, but Live705 have indicated that Case's Music and the person responsible have stepped up to help reimburse or replace broken gear. Hopefully things will move forward and upward into 2018!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for our retrospective post on everything that went down in the local metal, hard rock, and punk scenes in 2017 later today! Thanks everyone!

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