Full Concert Videos From The Inner City Surfers & Mike Haggith At Soo Blaster!!

Today's post is devoted to shows at the same venue last month that featured videos of a prominent band's full set, so here's what you should know on both on this Sunday morning!

I profusely apologize for the month+ delay in this making the site, but remember how inactive local punk quartet The Inner City Surfers reunited at Soo Blaster on November 3rd to support drummer Mikey Hawdon's wedding? Well, bassist Brad "Example" Lacell live-streamed their whole headlining set for his YouTube channel! Unfortunately, Brad's camera was set up partially behind something (perhaps a speaker?), so about 30% of the view is blocked on the bottom left. The video is also filmed from beside the stage, at an angle where we see more of everyone's back than front, so only guitarist Dave Bahun is visible with any steady regularity. Frontman Dustin Jones is obscured at the other side of the stage when not moving around, and Mikey's drumkit is mostly blocked out, so be advised of the limited view. The 65 minute video begins with the guys covering Gioachino Rossini's "William Tell Overture", before tackling a cover of Stompin' Tom Connors' "Algoma 69" with Brad on lead vocals.

The Surfers' first original on this night was "Screwed", as followed by "Pickin' From The Country", "Get High", "Been Done", and "Never Ender Bender". For the next two songs, Mikey left the drumkit to sing lead on covers of The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and The Beastie Boys' "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)", both featuring guest drummers. On the former, Brent Shepherd of the Toronto cover rock band WD50 handled percussion, while Mikey's AMY/DC bandmate Dean Glover (also the webmaster of the Mikey & His Uke website) drummed on the latter. Mikey returned to the kit to begin the second half of their set, starting with this familiar instrumental whose name I couldn't immediately place, We get back to originals next with "Won't Belong", "Grab My Pen" (with Brad singing lead), "Booze N' Doobs", and "Here's To The Days", before a brief Muppet Show theme song interlude.

Extended jams of "Commandments" and "The Quest" ended their set, the latter segueing into a cover of Corey Hart's "Sunglasses At Night", if you can believe it! Despite the visual impairments and some distorted audio, it's great to see a full Surfers concert set like this, and here's hoping that Mikey's late-set teaser that "we'll see you in about 10 years" is a conservative estimate! Fans of their self-titled "black album" will like that eight of the thirteen songs were played here, along with three from earlier albums (nothing from "Time To Travel On" though). Give The Inner City Surfers' reunion set a watch for yourselves below!

Next up, remember how local/Barrie alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith had announced plans to live-stream his complete set at The Soo's Got Talent finals (also at Soo Blaster) on November 4th, only for technical difficulties to scuttle that? Well, we still have a full video of his band's half hour set to check out courtesy of his YouTube channel on December 7th! Two different cameras (one from the floor in front of the stage and a stationary camera off to the side) combined to show off the final product, though be advised that there isn't consistent audio from one source here, so the quality does change from camera to camera (I'd have at least had the videos fade in/out when transitioning). Two TikTok styled videos (vertical, short, and featuring on-screen text) have also been uploaded from this set to Mike's Facebook page from a different filmer, but you know me, longer, clean, and horizontal videos are far more preferable in every way imaginable!

By "complete set", I mean Mike's half hour-long mid-finals set where he, Chris, Jacob, and Brandan did Mike's own material, not the main finals competition where they backed up most of the finalists. In order, their set included "I've Seen It Before", "Hot & Cold", covers of The Din's "Missing" and Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City", "MorningStar" (extended with band introductions), and "The Nature Of The Times". I won't rehash my complete thoughts on Mike's set, as I did review everything in person last month, but it was a solid performance from Mike & crew, and these videos capture that well! Particularly the non-stationary camera, which got the majority of the footage here, with the side-stage camera mainly filling in some between song breaks (just as well, as the tight angle isn't ideal and really does Jacob a disservice). Give Mike's final full-band concert set of 2023 a watch below!

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