Sault Michigan hard/blues rock quintet Project 906 will begin their year with a one-night-only concert TOMORROW NIGHT at The Merchant's Bar! Apologies for the short notice, the band quietly announced this show on their Facebook page on New Year's Day, which slipped us by late last week. After taking the last couple months of 2025 off, this will be 906's first concert since their Halloween gig in Rudyard, and while they played often prior, the guys haven't played a public gig in the Soo since the Musicians Unite fundraiser in March, and they last rocked The Merch in July of 2024. It's been a while regardless, so it's good to see Billy, Joe, Dustin, Jason, and Brian back at it at a familiar local venue, and hopefully they deliver for assembled fans as expected TOMORROW NIGHT! This show has an 8:00 PM start time, 21+ age limit, and no cover charge. See above for more details, and here's Project 906 live!
Next up, we'll wrap up this weekend's known hard rock concert previews, as Sault Ontario hard rock quintet HeadF1rst will play their... first concert of 2026 TOMORROW NIGHT at Beck's Bar! Last seen just over a month ago at Shooters, west fans won't have seen this talented quintet at the former Vibe Lounge since June of last year, and hopefully they have a good turnout for their hard rocking covers and originals to kick off another new year! This show has a 9:00 PM start time, 19+ age limit, and no announced cover charge as usual for Beck's. Tomorrow's matinee performer at 3:00 PM is newer local acoustic duo Whiskey Hippy, who have their own separate 4 hour timeslot and are not "opening" for HeadF1rst, but you can hang around to see bothif you want. Visit the above links for more details, and here's HeadF1rst live!
Also, let's finally look at videos of the band formerly known as The Sault Side Squad when they opened the Fist Magnet/Spigots reunion concert at Soo Blaster last month! On the night of December 27th, the online page-less metal band revealed that they had officially changed their name to With Gunfire. No idea if they gave a reason for the name change at that show, but their original name (a play on "Suicide Squad") did seem to get a mixed reception. While Kevin Campbell didn't arrive in time to film With Gunfire's set for his YouTube channel, drummer Jonas Gasperas did upload four videos shot by attendees to his new YouTube channel! All are of original songs named "Beatdown", "Nuisance", "Well Of The Dead", and embedded below, "M.F.C.". Alas, all four were shot vertically, but these are our first proper videos of this band that aren't technically unlisted.
These also give us our first look at the former Sault Side Squad with The BAG's Spencer MacGillivray on lead vocals in lieu of Justin Pregent, and if you're familiar with heavier BAG originals, you'll approve of what Spencer brings to the table here, with some harsher vocals and yelling mixed in. A newer local metal band with this stacked lineup of familiar faces should be getting more attention (they debuted in 2024, they really should get social media pages going), but they have a very heavy sound that straddles a few genre influences, and Anthony and Chris have strong guitar work throughout, so With Gunfire's first truly public videos a watch above and below! We'll have more from them soon!
Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual for these short form stories, these are in alphabetical order by band or company name:
- I have moved local hard rock trio Bullet Train to our inactive band links. The band last posted a public update regarding their activity on their Facebook page on Christmas Eve 2024, where they promised that they would "be seeing you in the new year", but their only post in 2025 was in memoriam to the late Ozzy Osbourne. This union of Sense of Truth and Fort Creek alumni released three current events-driven original songs in 2024, but plans to release two EPs never went publically far. Hopefully we hear more from Cory, Bones, and Tony when the time is right!
- While not announced publically on social media prior, local classic/hard rock cover quartet Double Down's show at The Water Tower Pub on Saturday was without bassist Dan Beaupre, but he was out of town in this case, rather than the ailment that knocked him out of most of their late 2025 concerts. Mid Life Crysis bassist Lori Reinholtz (their primary fill-in when Dan was out of action) returned on the low end for this one-nighter. I hope the concert was a hit on all fronts, and that Dan's trip went well!
- Rogers Radio closed their physical office at 642 Great Northern Road in October, with a "for lease" sign currently in the window of the building. This is part of a consolidation into remote operations from radio employee's homes or alternate locations for certain smaller markets, including the Soo and Timmins, as per this article from Broadcast Dialogue. No local jobs at either 104.3 The Fox or Kiss 100.5 were affected, though note that local mid-day DJ Dan Koo previously left the former Q104 in August, with North Bay's Mitch Belanger replacing him on our dial. Not ideal, but at least the stations are alive and well, and today is actually 104.3 The Fox's first anniversary as a rock station!
That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile next! Thanks everyone!
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