New Videos From Fort Creek & Re:Born, Plus More News & Notes!!

I hope all of our Ontario-based readers are adjusting as well to the current lockdown as they can! After focusing solely on Sault Michigan last time out, we're (mostly) in Canada today, courtesy of lots of new videos from two prominent covers-leaning bands, plus a few assorted news updates to round things out with. Here's what you should know!

 

Before Ontario was locked down again, local Southern hard rock quintet Fort Creek played one social distance-enforced concert weekend at Reggie's West two weeks ago, and they live-streamed a bunch of songs from the Saturday, March 27th gig on their Facebook page! These are across five videos, all capturing at least two songs, and unfortunately, most were uploaded sideways. Two were thankfully at a normal angle, including the first video, which features Fort Creek covering Theory Of A Deadman's "Lowlife" and Tonic's "Open Up Your Eyes". The three sideways videos begin with this 12 minute video of them covering Radiohead's "Creep", The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band's "Blue On Black", and Luke Combs' "Can I Get An Outlaw" Next was an 8 minute video of Fort Creek tackling Shaman's Harvest's "Dangerous" (complete with fake emergency alert intro) & Monster Truck's "Don't Tell Me How To Live". 

The fifth and final video was the longest, running for almost 20 minutes, and it features renditions of Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down", Guns N' Roses' "It's So Easy", Seether's "Tonight", and Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" (by way of Nonpoint, perhaps?) Embedded below is the fourth video, and longest of the two that aren't sideways, which features covers of Luke Combs's "Beer Never Broke My Heart" and a southern rock version of Motley Crue's "Live Wire". During Justin's introductions of the band in the fifth video, he acknowledged that bassist Robin "Bones" Lee was playing despite a broken shoulder, so now you know what his teased health issue was. Fort Creek posted this black & white video last week where Bones updated fans on his recovery, thanked everyone who saw them at the Reggievelt, and assured fans that he'll be ready to go when they can play live again.

 

Informative video with some humorous touches, including a very surprising contest for band merchandise! Nice to see so much new video content from Fort Creek when they could still make it, complete with a lot of surprising modern rock covers, and despite three of the five live-streams being sideways, the audio quality holds up! These also give a look into how Reggie's West dealt with social distancing (the lack of fans up front is not accidental), but it is a shame that Shane was stuck behind that cursed pole on the stage. Give Fort Creek's new videos a watch above & below!

Next up, here's some newly uploaded videos on local power rock quartet Re:Born's Facebook page last month! On March 7th, the band shared a brand new rehearsal video (with the caption "There's a pulse......."), of them also covering Motley Crue's "Live Wire", and while only 18 seconds long, it was a promising sign of life! You know it's a new video because of guitarist Blair Burch's much shorter haircut. The video only shows Blair and Brandan in frame, but the audio quality is solid, and it is nice knowing that Re:Born were playing again.... until the new lockdown, of course, but hopefully they can jam again next month! Embedded below is a newly posted concert video from Re:Born's first show with Elly McWatters on vocals, namely their headlining gig at Soo Blaster on March 12th, 2019 to warm up before opening for The Killer Dwarfs there, and the video features them covering Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It"!

Filmed on a stationary (if slightly crooked) angle, this is a strong rendition of this 1980s metal classic, and assembled fans on the floor definitely enjoyed it! Re:Born had a good first year with this lineup, but alas, the pandemic put the brakes on their momentum, so fingers crossed they can get back on stage safely when things lighten up, hopefully later this year. Give Re:Born's new videos a look above and below!

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

• The live-streamed virtual concert festival Coronafest will return for a second installment on Saturday, April 17th as per the Facebook event page! Co-organized by former Sykotyk Rampage bassist Brian Cattapan (now based out of Sudbury), last year's event featured Brian and local hard rock singer Cory Murchison among it's diverse and mostly non-local lineup, though the current roster has no recognizable local hard rock/punk names. If things change in that regard, we'll let you know, but see above for more details!
  
• The Harp Bar & Grill (formerly Madison's Pub) at 701 Pine Street has reportedly closed it's doors permanently due to the third lockdown, and celebrated it's last call on Good Friday, as per their Facebook page. The Harp hosted a number of acoustic concerts from their 2013 Irish rebranding until the pandemic began, but it may be better known to readers from Madison's higher profile run of electric concerts in the 2000s. I won't get into their divisive response to the pandemic on social media here, but it is sad to lose a venue outright like this, and we do wish best of luck to Harp & Pizza King staff and regular patrons in the future!
  
• Kewadin Casino in Sault Michigan have announced that tickets purchased for all 2020 concerts postponed or cancelled due to the pandemic will be refunded, if not done so already. According to their Facebook page, Kewadin box office representatives will be contacting people with outstanding tickets and will be sending out checks for refund purposes. These dates do include the Black Label Society and Candlebox shows that were called off last spring. Here's hoping for concerts to resume there as normal down the line!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on the site next! Thanks everyone!