LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Poutine Feast), New Videos, And More!!

Happy Father's Day to all of our dad readers! Today's post is half devoted to LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS regarding a popular downtown festival in a couple of weeks, while we also have some recent concert videos and assorted updates to touch on, so here's what you should know!

Live music will return to the Sault Ste. Marie Poutine Feast over the Canada Day long weekend, and while a full performer schedule across all four days (Thursday, June 29th-Sunday, July 2nd) is not yet out, two SMS-leaning bands are confirmed for this year's itinerary, starting with funk/hard rock cover sextet The Wyld Stallyns outside of the Ermatinger Clergue National Historic Site at 800 Bay Street on Thursday the 29th! The Stallyns played last year's festivities as the Thursday morning openers, but they have been bumped way up to evening headliners at 6:00 PM, which is a change from last year, where only the Friday and Saturday programs had bands that late. It's worth noting that singer Christina Speers' new disco tribute band The Saturday Nights will also be playing at the Poutine Feast this year, but they have not publically stated the day or timeslot. We'll let you know when/if organizers release the full schedule (they did last year, in any event!)

The Stallyns confirmed their involvement via this Facebook page, as did the other known band playing at the Poutine Feast this year, namely local alt-hard rock quintet Handsome Sandwich! About one year after members of the two bands joined forces for early July gigs under the Stallyns banner (The Wyld Sandwych?), Handsome Sandwich will make their standalone Poutine Feast debut as the headliners on Sunday, July 2nd at 4:00 PM! Be advised that the band gave their timeslot as 4:00-7:00 PM, but the Poutine Feast's own advertising says that the festival ends that day at 6:00 PM. One of them is right! This will be Handsome Sandwich's first show since the Soo Soundcheck event earlier this month, and hopefully they prove to be a fitting soundtrack to cap off the Poutine Feast! No word on other bands playing this year, but the timeslot spacing would imply three bands daily except for two on the shorter Sunday program.

Of course, the main portion of the Poutine Feast is the poutine, with many kinds on sale from a bunch of food trucks all weekend long, so if you love fries drenched in gravy & cheese curds (or anything else), head down to the Old Stone House for all of that, with music to match! The daily programs begin at 11:00 AM across all four days, this is absolutely all ages, and admission is free assuming you don't buy any food. Visit the official Facebook event page and the above links for continuing updates on this year's Poutine Feast as they roll in!

Next up, here's our long-awaited write-up on videos from the Queen: It's A Kinda Magic tribute concert at The Sault Community Theatre Centre on May 21st, courtesy of Christopher Paci's great YouTube channel! Again, apologies for the nearly month-long delay in these making the site, but now we're caught up for his heavier concert videos (assuming he wasn't filming at something this weekend!). Chris shot eight videos of the Australian Queen tribute band playing the classic songs "We Will Rock You", "We Are The Champions", "Under Pressure", "I Want To Break Free" (featuring singer Dominic Warren heading out into the crowd), "Bicycle Race", "Another One Bites The Dust", "Radio Ga Ga", and as embedded below, "Bohemian Rhapsody". Always impressive seeing a band tackle the entire version of that song, even the "scaramouche" part, which the real Queen used a pre-recorded track of because it was hard to replicate.

Chris has gotten clearer videos compared to these, and the audio can be soft at times and scratchy at others, but he has a good view from the right of the stage to capture It's A Kinda Magic's very professional stage set-up and high attention to detail! You can tell that this tribute had the Queen look and sound down pat, so fans of the British hard rock legends will have been right at home, and you can tell by the audience reception! Give Chris' videos from last month 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 name:

 

• Former Rising Tide/Lake Effect drummer Chris Johns filled in for Tony Santoro behind the kit when Generations played at Jay's Piston Broke Pub last night due to unspecified "prior commitments", according to the band's Facebook group. Fan-shot photos have already made their way there, and hopefully Chris fit in well with Generations for the night!
• The one-off reunion of local classic/hard rock cover band That's Chester at Rotaryfest on July 15th will feature original singer Richard Fullerton as their lead singer for the evening, according to the band's Facebook page! Ritch had made guest appearances with That's Chester in their last two Rotaryfest gigs in 2016 & 2018, but he appears to have fully replaced Greg Simpson for this show, making this the first Rotaryfest without Greg fronting a band since 2009. No reason was given for the switch, but fans of mid-2000s That's Chester will be glad to see Ritch back from Ottawa for the night! Dan Belanger will return as rhythm guitarist in lieu of the late Eugene Orlando.
• To promote last night's Soo Blaster concert, local punk trio Vanity First and rap/party metal duo The Apocalypse Afterparty were spotlighted in this SooToday news release! No big scoops here unless you weren't familiar with The A.A.'s fluidity for inviting guest musicians on stage (never guitarists, the band has never had them), but we do learn here that Vanity First were originally a quintet named Five Angry Women before eventually changing their name to Vanity (First) and paring their lineup down. One ex-band member is bassist Nick McClelland, but I don't know who the other one was. Good promotion for the concert, so check it out above!
  

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!