Toystock VII Fallout, News Coverage, And Videos!!

As you may know, the seventh annual Toystock charity concert went down this past Sunday at The Northern Grand Gardens, and it was another hit for both attendees and Christmas Cheer donations alike, so let's devote an entire post to fallout from that day! Among this year's news coverage was this SooToday article by Darren Taylor, which features quotes from co-organizer Kerry Simpson, details on the then-still-ongoing concert, and two photos each from The Algo Rhythms' and Case's Music students' sets, plus one of donated toys. Good promotion for Toystock VII, and hopefully it encouraged some late attendees to head down there! A linked photo album courtesy of attendee Sandi Wheeler also includes more photos from early in the day, though aside from a video of Brendan Hodgson's set, it's focused on the donations and vendors. Sault This Week's Allana Plaunt was also on hand for Toystock last week, covering the event and interviewing Kerry again for this Wednesday's front page story. It's a brief article with no large focus on the musicians, but again, the positive promotion is great to see!

Sault Online's Megan Pounder was also in attendance for this article on Toystock, and it's a longer piece with more reflections on the concert aspect, including remarks from Kerry's husband and co-organizer Greg Simpson, plus local radio DJ Jeff McNiece, who played on Sunday with The Jeff & Jeff Show. This article has a few minor spelling notes, but it's great to see some more in-depth local news coverage! There are a few photos there too, but again, not of the bands. And much to my surprise, CTV News Northern Ontario were also on hand, with journalist Lincoln Louttit filing this report in both video and text formats on Monday, so if you watched the MCTV News that day, this will be old hat! In this case, both the video piece and text article feature remarks from both Greg and Kerry, as well as three attending fans, while you do get brief footage of The Bearded Lounge and The Jeff & Jeff Show's opening sets. It's great to see CTV stop in to cover Toystock, it's proof the event is growing bigger and bigger!

Regarding videos, let's first touch on some clips of local classic/hard rock cover quartet Soundcheck, courtesy of drummer Glen Thomas' YouTube channel on Wednesday! There are more clips on personal Facebook pages from Sunday night, not to mention more non-Toystock videos we haven't addressed yet on Glen's channel, but we'll focus on his two public Toystock videos today. One is of his annual drumkit giveaway to a lucky child in attendance, with two more being donated for the cause that night as well. Glen's been donating personally refurbished drumkits for Christmas Cheer over the past two decades, and it's great to see him continue giving back at this time of year, so give that video a look! As for Soundcheck proper, Glen shared this video of them playing a 13 minute-long medley, including versions of David Wilcox's "Riverboat Fantasy", Journey's "Don't Stop Believing", Metallica's "Enter Sandman", Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time", ...

...Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer", and Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin'", before ending with a reprise of "Riverboat Fantasy". For reference, singer/guitarists Travis Sharpe and Terry Eaton split lead vocal duties on the individual songs (Travis did Journey, Boston, and Bon Jovi, Terry did the rest, and they did backing vocals for each other.) Despite some attendee heads getting in the way, Soundcheck sound in fine form here, and they handle these classic rock hits (with a dash of metal) with their usual professional yet lively manner! Give Soundcheck's Toystock medley a look below, and don't miss them at Reggie's West TONIGHT!

Finally for today, here's one more video from Toystock VII, courtesy of one more local news service that stopped by the event, namely Soo Profile Magazine! This follows the magazine's cover feature on Toystock co-organizer and Bone Yard/Bearded Lounge frontman Greg Simpson in their current issue, which goes into nice detail on his musical career and recent country work. Admittedly, I'd have liked to have seen a little more detail on his old hard rock bands Stiffler's Mom and That's Chester, but this is still a must read for fans of Greg's extensive musical resume in the Soo! As for that Toystock video, it's of local acoustic hard rock trio The Wyld Stallyns, as live streamed by attendee Marcy Catherine and shared to Soo Profile's Facebook page shortly thereafter.  The video features the Elements side project covering Prince's "Kiss" in a folksy acoustic style, but the focus of the video could arguably go to Mr. Bon Soo himself, who came to meet the kids in attendance on Sunday.

Everyone looks like they're having fun, and The Wyld Stallyns handle this somewhat out-of-left-field cover pretty well, so give this video a look below, stay tuned for more from The Wyld Stallyns soon, and look for copies of The Soo Profile Magazine at select local businesses!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post next! Thanks everyone!