New Videos From Half Past, The Soo Fighters, And More!!

Things have been relatively quiet for news and notes this week, but let's correct that with some new videos from a few familiar faces for rock fans of different stripes, and even a little holiday magic at the end. Without any further ado, here's what you should know!

After a year+ break from posting new videos onto his YouTube channel, prolific local rock guitarist/bassist Arthur Lacasse has made up for lost time with fourteen uploads there a couple of days ago! These all feature his three current bands, including reunited hard rock quartet Half Past, giving us our first visual look at them since their last public concert over a decade ago, and our first chance to see Jamie Labreche as their new drummer! These videos appear to come from a jam session, albeit with a very dolled up stage setup that does resemble a proper nightclub. All four are of modern hard rock covers, including Breaking Benjamin's "Blow Me Away", Staind's "For You", Seether's "Fallen" (which has the best angle of the band, albeit vertically), and as embedded below, System of a Down's "Spiders". Half Past sound good with these covers, they've more or less picked up where they left off in 2011!

Jordan's vocals have definitely gotten more confident since we last saw him with this group, and Jamie's drum skills are evident, while it doesn't hurt that only he is really well lit with their jam room lighting! No word on when Half Past will return to the stage, such as the concert scene is right now given the pandemic, but give their new videos a look above & below!

The other new videos on Arthur's channel are of his other two active bands, namely Foo Fighters tribute band The Soo Fighters and their sister pop rock cover band Lockdown (Art and Jules Cote are in both bands, as was the late Chris Thompson on drums). All of these videos come from the Northern Vibe Festival in Ophir back in August, which was the debut for Lockdown period and The Soo Fighters' new lineup, as well as Chris' penultimate live concert. These appear to be the same videos previously posted onto both bands' Facebook pages from the festival, including more from both sets, though Art didn't re-upload Lockdown's cover of The Arctic Monkeys' "Snap Out Of It". The Lockdown videos now on YouTube include the previously seen covers of The Tragically Hip's "Blow At High Dough", The Black Keys' "Gold On The Ceiling", and Elle King's "Ex's & Oh's".

The new videos have renditions of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son", Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out", and The Sheepdogs' "The Way It Is". These covers aren't of hard rock songs, but they are definitely well performed by this group of talented musicians, though the distant camera angle doesn't help at all. That gets worse for The Soo Fighters, who were the surprising closing band at Northern Vibe VI, so their nighttime videos from the same filmer/location suffer greatly in the visual department. You will have seen their version of The Foos' "Monkey Wrench" on Facebook already, but the three new covers are of "Learn To Fly", "My Hero", and as embedded below, "Bridge Burning", which was their opening song, complete with an introduction by River Stage curator J.D. Pearce. Given the late setting and the state of the crowd, I do wish the filmer had gotten a lot closer to the stage for their set.

Despite the lack of visual clarity and overly bright stage lighting as such, these are strongly done Foo Fighters covers, so musically, you're in good hands! Nice to hear Chris again in these too, in what may be his final new concert videos, unless someone belatedly posts something from both bands' Halloween weekend show at The Rockstar Bar. Give all of Arthur's new YouTube videos a look above & below!

We'll close today with a Christmas surprise from former Brain Tuel guitarist Zach Reid's YouTube channel on Saturday, namely a 39 second acoustic guitar cover of John Williams' "Somewhere In My Memory", the theme song for the first two Home Alone movies. If you know me personally, you'll know that I love Home Alone 1 & 2, so I totally approve of a local musician tackling this song, even if a short snippet! Spare but effective, give Zach's take a watch below, and watch Home Alone while you're at it!

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