The First Of This Year's St. Patrick's Day Concert Previews!!

Irish eyes are definitely smiling upon the calendar this year, as with St. Patrick's Day falling on a Friday this year, it means the concert calendar is quite stacked, so be sure to check out your favourite nightclubs' and venues' online pages & schedules to see if bands are playing, let alone if they will have St. Patrick's Day themes. However, the weather gods are not smiling upon the Sault Ste. Marie area, with a winter storm watch currently in effect from late tonight through Saturday morning, with up to 3-8 inches of snow expected, so if you are at all concerned that a band or St. Patrick's Day party will be impaired by the impending storm, keep tabs on their online accounts for further details, as things can easily change.

Due to the amount of scheduled hard rock/punk concerts this weekend, I'll save the Bone Yard, Scarkazm, and Tym Morrison shows for tomorrow morning's post, and maybe anything that falls into our lap beforehand. Now, let's start with three Friday-only shows, including the big one this weekend, as Muskegon, Michigan hard rock mainstays Pop Evil will make their long awaited return to the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino TOMORROW NIGHT when they headline at The Dreammakers Theatre! This will be Pop Evil's seventh local concert, sixth at the Soo Kewadin, first since their outdoor gig with Buckcherry back in August 2019, and their first here with touring bassist Joey Walser in place of Matt DiRito. Of course, Pop Evil have loads of familiar rock radio hits, including "Breathe Again", "Eye Of The Storm", and "Survivor" since their last local date alone, so fans should be in good hands tomorrow!

Support bands include Phoenix metalcore band The Word Alive and Seattle metalcore quintet Avoid, and while both are more aggressive than Pop Evil by rule, their fast rising takes on the subgenre shouldn't be avoided tomorrow night! A presentation of Allstar Promotions, this 8:00 PM & all ages concert is actually a big deal on a wider scale for Pop Evil's sake, as it is both the full kickoff show for this tour, as well as the day that their new album "Skeletons" is released, so get your copy while it is hot off the presses! Tickets run for $29.50 USD (up from $25 at their last Dreammakers Theatre show in 2018), and limited seats in the left and right sections are still available, albeit in the back three rows only. If you want any seat that you can get, or want standing room only admission, click here, call 1-800-KEWADIN, or visit the in-person box office. For the record, this concert has no overt St. Patrick's Day ties in the promotion.

Pop Evil have been very good to Sault Ste. Marie in the past decade+, and with their upbeat, high energy brand of modern hard rock still going high on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, they should be in fine form with a huge crowd to match tomorrow night! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and for a preview, here's Pop Evil live here!

Next up, local blues/hard rock quartet Project 906 will return to The Islander Bar in nearby Hessel TOMORROW NIGHT! Their first trip to The Islander Bar (almost an hour south of the Soo) since Halloween weekend, tomorrow's festivities will definitely be St. Patrick's Day-themed, including a traditional corned beef/boiled cabbage dinner if you are so inclined beforehand, plus multiple Irish-themed drink specials. Project 906 themselves will bring the rock as usual, and they should deliver entertaining hard rock covers and select originals for Mackinac County fans tomorrow! This is a one-nighter due to or resulting in Gary Hatch's show there on Saturday, and be advised that The Islander Bar will actually close for nearly a month starting on Sunday (the venue didn't say why, but renovations seem likely)

Tomorrow's concert has a 8:00 PM start time, no cover charge, and a 21+ age limit. Between this show and Scarkazm in the Soo (more tomorrow), hard rock fans in the eastern U.P. will have some solid options for St. Patrick's Day, so don't miss out, and for a preview of Project 906's Hessel gig tomorrow, here they are live a few months back!

Lastly for this preview post, we'll head north to Sault Ontario, where debuting local skate punk trio Hails and folk punk/extreme metal solo musician Chase Wigmore will join forces for a special concert/art exhibition TOMORROW at The Art Hub at Spring! Named the "Full Circle Rock & Roll Spectacular", this event is being held at the former Big Brothers Association property at 504 Queen Street East, and it is being held as part of the Fishbowl Festival and, within that, Hails frontman Brenton Ellis' own art exhibition named Full Circle, which celebrates "connectivity & continuity". Remember, if you've seen any of Brent's recent concerts or him at events where sale of his artwork occurred, you'll know his painting talents and this should be a good showcase for his visual art endeavours! Hails feature Brent alongside Vanity First's Mikhal Muto & Keeghan McAllister (yes, Vanity First is still active) and shouldn't be far off musically.

As for Chase, this will be a rare pandemic-era live concert set from him, but will this lean more to his recent metal studio work or his past unplugged folk punk live sets? Come out tomorrow to find out! This all ages event has a 7:30 PM start time, and admission is $10 or "pay what you can", and if you are so inclined, tickets are available at this link. If there are St. Patrick's Day themes tomorrow, then they go unsaid in Facebook promotion. Should be a fun evening for punk fans and art aficionados alike, so visit the above links for more details, and here's one of Chase's recent acoustic videos!

That's all for now, but we'll wrap up the St. Patrick's Day weekend hard rock concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!