I've put this off for too long as it is, so here's coverage of public videos from two bands that played at last month's Northern Vibe Festival in Ophir! Before then, we have some promising news about the Poplardale Road festival's future, as 2024 might not have been the final installment as organizers had hinted at in advance. A poll was posted on their Facebook page on Tuesday where they were asking if supporters would attend a fundraising event featuring bands and/or DJs that would help raise money to improve the band-centric Forest Stage. They wouldn't float that idea if they weren't hoping to return in 2025, after all, so speak up there if you'd come to or perform at such an event! Now to videos from that weekend, and while we're not going in performance order here, I did want to highlight Sudbury psychedelic hard rock trio The Dirty Mystics first, as Northern Vibe IX was their first ever public concert in any location!
Yes, a non-local band made their debut in our neck of the woods, which is neat! While they have teased that "more videos & music from the show are coming soon", they definitely had their own cameras (note the plural) rolling for their set, and you can see brief multi-camera footage of their Saturday evening set below courtesy of their Facebook page. It's just 9 seconds long and overlaid by text, but it's certainly better than nothing, so give it a watch below, and hopefully some much longer videos from their Northern Vibe set turn up soon!
Perhaps aided by paid wifi being offered to attendees this year, there are a few more public videos than normal to check out from this year's Northern Vibe, and most substantially of all is a full concert video from local/Barrie alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith and his Big Finish Band! Before then, I should finally address their full-set video from last year's Northern Vibe Festival, which I hinted at in May when Mike posted a song from it on Facebook, but the full multi-camera livestream from Chalykoff Studios was finally uploaded to his YouTube channel at the end of that month. No word on if the interview that Mike's band recorded with Chalykoff Studios last year will ever see the light of day, but last year's full concert (shot across five cameras) is now fully available! Remember, Mike's band then featured Jacob Quarrell on bass, and only included current guitarist Elly McWatters as a backing vocalist on the last two songs.
In his first public concert after his freak knee dislocation at last year's Rotaryfest, Mike and crew played (in order) "All You Do", "Hot & Cold", covers of Gnaeus' "Lovers" & Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City", "MorningStar", "Missing" by The Din, "Love Will Light The Way", "I've Seen It Before", a cover of Bizotic's "Subway Delay", "The Nature Of The Times", and "Twist Of Fate". I won't go into great detail on the set proper (I already did last year from its single camera live-stream), but the footage here is excellently shot and edited, so kudos to Justine and crew for putting in great work to make Mike's set last year look this good! Check out Mike & The Big Finish Band's 2023 Northern Vibe set below!
Now to this year's Mike Haggith concert in Ophir, which he posted as a "delayed live-stream" on his YouTube channel on August 27th, as poor data coverage on Mike's end led to it being posted after the fact. This is a single camera video, but Chalykoff Studios was on hand once again, and multi-camera footage like last year will eventually go online when complete (though remember that last year's final copy was only posted on YouTube in May). Mike's band (now including Gnaeus' Matt Fronzi on bass) played another 11 song set, this time as the Friday night co-headliners. Interestingly, Mike did not play guitar at all at Northern Vibe, which would seem to be a huge endorsement of Elly's increasing guitar abilities! This year, Mike and crew only played original songs (not even a Din cover), and their set started with a brand new song of Mike's entitled "Brand New Day", which blended directly into his existing track "Back Away Slowly".
The 43 minutes-long set continued with "An Act Of Strength", followed by the two new original songs that debuted at Rotaryfest, namely "I Really Hope This Gets To You" and "No Love". The rest of the set was made up of existing originals, starting with "Hot & Cold" (one of just three songs carried over from Northern Vibe 2023). After introducing the band and acknowledging this being the potential final year of the festival, they played "From The 55th Parallel", "Carousel" (after Elly switched guitars), "The Nature Of The Times", "All The Best", and finally, "Twist Of Fate". Strong set for fans of Mike's substantial solo career, and this band definitely had these songs down well, including Elly in her first full set in Mike's band (she didn't play guitar on three songs at Rotaryfest). Good energy and well shot from this stationary angle, even if the multi-camera mastered footage is still to come! I did notice that Mike didn't say much between songs though.
Perhaps they were trying to cram as much as they could into a 45 minute slot, or they were behind schedule with The Golden Scoundrels waiting to close, but if you want to see Mike talk to the fans, check after "Hot & Cold" and during the end of "All The Best". If you love Mike's Thompson and Barrie-era original material, you'll definitely want to check out these lively rock renditions below, and we'll let you know when Chalykoff Studios' pro-shot multi-camera footage eventually goes live!
Yes, we will have Handsome Sandwich's new video from Northern Vibe in an upcoming post, as well as Mike Haggith's lengthy video interview from last month, so stay tuned for those and much more on the site as September continues! Thanks everyone!
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