Details On The Private Multi-Band Concert In Leeburn On Saturday!!

As I alluded to during our weekend concert previews, there was a private multi-band concert this weekend outside of town. While some bands did promote it publically, the Facebook event page was always private, labelled the event as "exclusive", and aimed it at friends of the promoters/bands rather than a general audience, with a firm cap of 100 tickets. We can safely mention the show now, which took place on Saturday at Robbie Adamson's old church in Leeburn, the site of the former Oh!No concert festivals in 2017-2019 (yes, those were public events). The headliners on Saturday were the surprise return of local death metal favourites The Bear Hunters in their first announced show of any kind in almost two years, and just their fourth since the end of 2017! This was not a one-off reunion, with the band confirming on their Facebook page that "hibernation (is) complete" and that they are working on new music.

Drummer Johnny Belanger and his partner Nicole Lamoureux put this event on, for the record. It is awesome to see The Bear Hunters back, and hopefully their return proves more fruitful than the latter pandemic-effected years of their original run! Note that they never played at the Oh!No festival, but they did film their "I Fear No God" music video at Robbie's church, so if video never surfaces from Saturday, you can still see Nik, Mitch, Justin, and Johnny rock out there! Mitch & Johnny's main alt-hard rock band Handsome Sandwich co-headlined on Saturday, with alt-punk trio A Dire Setback billed third. Newer local skate punk trio Ha!ls made the 45 minute drive east for this, with frontman Brenton "B.G." Ellis selling his art in the "Grey Area Gallery" during the private festivities. Pop rock cover band L!me also performed, and while hip hop duo Planet Rock were advertised, DJ Seith alone appeared to perform on Saturday instead.

This is backed up by A Dire Setback's public photos from the event on their Facebook page, including this shot of the band schedule. This implies that Planet Rock MC St. James was unavailable on Saturday (hopefully nothing bad happened), so DJ Seith stayed on the bill as a solo performer, which is a fine save! As you can see on the poster, there were three mystery acts, so who were they? Skinbox is the new local rock band from former Pixo Control/These Magnificent Tentacles guitarist Steve Edwards, but despite posting images from jam sessions on their Facebook page in May, they have not identified the band members or elaborated on their sound yet. As for The Couch Crusades, who were the second act on Saturday, I have zero idea who they are. In searching the name, all I came up with was promotion for this show and this unrelated podcast. We'll let you know when/if we hear anything!

Based on the band schedule linked above, the other new-to-us act dropped out for unannounced reasons, but Shrugby (not Shrugsby) is an electronica/house musician out of Wawa. Not in our genre range, but he does have a following and solid talent in the EDM scope, so check him out if you're into these styles! None of the currently circulating public advertising for the event credits them anymore, but I am 100% certain that defunct death/thrash metal trio Pillory were listed as performing when the event page first went live last month. Hopefully we haven't seen the last of them, in any case! As you can see in the poster, camping was free and encouraged for attendees, as it was in the Oh!No days, so this would have been a fun summer event for local music fans, especially punk and metal ones! Alas, it was private (barring the bands' own public advertising if they chose), but I didn't want to step on any toes by plugging it on here just to be safe.

Yes, I was invited, but I usually don't chance covering lengthy, more distant shows like this because I want to cover everything and I don't want camera or phone batteries running out at an in-opportune time and place (this is partly why I haven't yet covered Northern Vibe in person). As of this writing, no public videos have knowingly surfaced, but hopefully someone shot something given who was playing! Above all else, I hope this concert was a huge hit for everyone involved, and that the "camping with friends" angle  went over equally well, so see above for what is publically known about Saturday's festivities in Leeburn, and stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!