More Rotaryfest Stage 1 Videos, Plus Ripcordz Concert Coverage!!

After a Labour Day off, we're back with a new news post on this Tuesday morning, including coverage of a big recent punk show before and after the fact, but let's lead off with newly found concert videos from Sault Ste. Marie's annual summer festival!

As it turns out, we're not quite done with live concert videos from Rotaryfest in July! These come from the YouTube channel Camera Travel (a.k.a. tours5571), which is devoted to video footage of local tourism and road travel in Sault Ontario and surrounding areas, so you may want to give it a look on that basis. They did attend Rotaryfest across Friday and Saturday, July 14th-15th, and had cameras rolling at Clergue Park for thirteen videos, nine of which coming from the Buskerville performances there, especially of fire breathers. Camera Travel filmed two bands on Stage 1, interestingly on different days, including Winnipeg-based Bon Jovi tribute band Bed Of Roses on the Saturday playing (as embedded below) "Livin' On A Prayer" as well as the very tail end of their set, song unclear. These are short and relatively distant from the stage, but from what we hear of Bed Of Roses, they have the Bon Jovi sound down well!

Worth noting too that Bed Of Roses' set happened at dusk, so things were getting darker as their set wore on, and it is a neat visual compared to most other bands that played this year, especially ones who got filmed for public videos. Check out Bed Of Roses' videos from July 15th above and below!

Next up, Camera Travel's other Rotaryfest Stage 1 videos come from Friday, July 14th, specifically of classic rock quartet RPM's set, where they filmed guitarists Dino Mazzuca & Marcel Rizzo, bassist Rob Gilmar, and drummer Joseph Bertrand covering Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" and, as embedded below, AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long". Good to see RPM tackle a heavier song, and while still distant from the stage, the audio quality isn't bad, and Camera Travel filmed longer videos of RPM than they did of Bed & Roses. Check everything out for yourselves above and below!

Finally, I hope to have videos to cover from the show in an upcoming post, but let's look at some recent SooToday coverage of Friday night's Ripcordz-headlined concert at The Loft! Apologies for being so late to the party on the first of them, but Alex Flood penned this article on August 13th looking at the show ahead, where he erroneously noted that this was The Ripcordz' first local date since 2016 (they played at The Rockstar Bar in 2017 & 2019). The article features interview remarks from frontman Paul Gott about the fancier and relatively unique venue for this local date, his enjoyment of playing dates in the Soo, and his passion for punk rock. Solid article for Ripcordz fans, so give it a look at above! For what it's worth, while he didn't note the post-2016 dates of their shows in the article, Alex said there that The Rockstar Bar is "now closed", which sadly remains accurate for The Algonquin Hotel's upstairs nightclub as of this writing.

The Rockstar Bar has been closed since mid-2022, but as per a comment reply at this link, there were once hopes to re-open in the spring of 2023. I know that the pandemic hit them hard, but hopefully we haven't absolutely heard the last from The Rockstar Bar, which was a quality venue throughout the 2010s! In terms of actual coverage from that night, veteran SooToday journalist Donna Hopper was in attendance on Friday for this article, and it's great seeing her back reviewing a local concert of this kind! The upscale venue upstairs at the Algoma Conservatory of Music was heavily the theme of Donna's review compared to past Ripcordz venues here, including a note that there was less moshing than normal, perhaps in deference to the locale. Things appeared to go over well regardless, though no word on if promoter Matt Waples' $500 raffle if online tickets sold out went through.

Donna did take photos at the show, including five of The Ripcordz, three each of local openers A Dire Setback and Far From Fine, and one of fans, and the quality is as high as you'll recall from her pre-pandemic concert reviews! Worth noting from Far From Fine's pictures that Blair St. John was back behind the drumkit (no word on if he is their permanent drummer now or still just filling in), while an unidentified child (possibly Mike's son?) is seen guesting on vocals on at least one song, 19+ age limit for the show acknowledged. Get more about Friday's festivities at The Loft above, and stay tuned for much more on the site this week! Thanks everyone!