LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Generations) & Our Lady Peace/Collective Soul Concert Videos!!

Before we kick off another packed stretch of weekend concert previews, here's a new news post to check out on this Wednesday evening, featuring a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for later this month and some very belated videos from a major concert earlier this year. Here's what you should know!

Local classic/hard rock cover quartet Generations will make their first appearance at Beck's Bar on Saturday, June 21st! This show was first announced on the band's Facebook group on Sunday by drummer Tony Santoro, and while members may well have played at the former Vibe Lounge during its early 2010s run under that name, it will be good to see Generations spread their wings a little further west at another live venue! Beck's proper have not corroborated this booking at press time, but they generally take bookings week by week, hence why many of the hard rock shows there are late notice around these parts. Remember that the Goulais River nightclub hosts DJ nights on Fridays, hence why this is a one-nighter, and we await word of who's playing in the Saturday matinee timeslot next week. This is a 9:00 PM concert with a 19+ age limit and no cover charge. Visit the above links for more details on Generations' upcoming Beck's debut!

Next up, remember how there was a surprisingly small amount of public videos after the Our Lady Peace-headlined concert at GFL Memorial Gardens on March 2nd? Well, this should help make up for things, as Christopher Paci belatedly uploaded videos of every band to his YouTube channel on May 4th! Apologies for the month+ delay on our part for these making the site, already two months after the show took place, but better late than never given Chris' excellent work filming at major local concerts over the years! Chris filmed eighteen videos at the Gardens on this night, half coming from the headlining Toronto alt-hard rock quartet, and he captured O.L.P. playing "One Man Army", "Superman's Dead", "Innocent", "Life" (featuring Superior Heights Collegiate's student rock band Steel Rock), "In Repair", "Whatever", "Somewhere Out There", "Clumsy", and as embedded below, their set closer "Starseed".

While not especially close to the stage from his spot on the floor, Chris zoomed in well to capture much of Our Lady Peace's first local set since 1998, and the guys sound good! Raine's voice is definitely deeper than in their heyday, but fans of their domestic rock radio hits (the Q104 format switch happened just in time, huh?) had nothing to worry about, and you can see how packed the arena was. Check out Christopher's Our Lady Peace videos for yourselves above & below!

From co-headliners Collective Soul's set, Chris filmed the Georgia alt-rock veterans playing "Mother's Love", "Heavy", "Shine", "Precious Declaration", "Gel", and as embedded below, "The World I Know". Collective Soul have a litany of familiar classic hit songs, and they come through well via the local concert videos, though the cell phone waving during ballads like "The World I Know" really dates things to the present! Good stuff for rock radio fans, so give Chris' videos from their set a watch as well!

Finally for today, Chris also filmed two songs from local indie punk quintet The Northwest's opening set on March 2nd, specifically of their original songs "Long Hair (Longer Nights)" and, as embedded below, "Walls". For their first live concert after a year+ hiatus, they made the most of their available staging with a good lively set, if these videos are any indication! Fans making their way/to from seats are definitely more of an issue at this point in the evening, so keep that in mind. No word on when we'll see The Northwest live again, Greg & Yak acoustic gigs aside, but check out The Northwest's 2025 videos from the Gardens above and below!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!

Our Lady Peace/Collective Soul Concert Fallout & Videos!!

We've put things off long enough (partly to let videos accumulate), so let's cover what went down at Sunday night's Our Lady Peace-headlined concert at GFL Memorial Gardens in today's post! The legitimately sold out concert was covered by newer SooToday reporter Greg McGrath-Goudie for this article that features ten photos from the Toronto alternative/hard rock band's closing set, but the focus isn't on the concert at large so much as one song. When O.L.P. broke into their classic ballad "Life", frontman Raine Maida prefaced it by noting that music programs are "automatically" the first to get cut at schools when they decide to cut costs, so they invited members of Superior Heights Collegiate & Vocational School's student rock band Steel Rock to sing the song with them. That huge opportunity was thanks to the work of Superior Heights teacher Eric Williams reaching out to the band about working with the school.

Kudos to Our Lady Peace for teaming up with Superior Heights and giving the kids one huge opportunity, one that they've been practicing for all winter, and it sounds like it went over well! You can see the performance below in one of (surprisingly) just two YouTube channels who have visibly posted content from the concert so far. YouTube user MasonTheGoat was on hand to film Our Lady Peace's set (nothing of the openers), and along with "Life" embedded below, he also filmed them playing "Clumsy", "Innocent", "In Repair", and "Whatever". Alas, all five videos were shot vertically, but while Mason wasn't especially close to the stage, he has a good clear view of the band in action. Honestly, Steel Rock are hard to hear as the song goes, but it's a solid performance of one of O.L.P.'s bigger hits, and the audio quality across all five videos is pretty good, so give Mason's footage a watch for yourselves above and below!

The only other YouTube video from the show that I've seen comes from YouTube user Mike Malott, who filmed Our Lady Peace playing "Whatever", which some readers will recognize as the 2002-2007 theme song of WWE wrestler Chris Benoit. The band hadn't played it live since 2003, let alone following the Benoit murder-suicide in 2007, but they reintroduced it in this current Canadian tour, with Raine telling fans at their show in Calgary that they wanted to "reclaim it" (source here). Mixed responses are online to the band bringing "Whatever" back, for obvious reasons, but it's a good performance shot from a much closer (and horizontal!) angle, and it is one of O.L.P.'s heavier cuts, so check it out below!

Finally for this post, has anything surfaced in terms of videos from the openers? Not a lot. I haven't seen any public videos of local openers The Northwest yet at all, and as for Georgia alternative rock veterans Collective Soul, the only public clip that I've seen actually comes from Sault Michigan rock radio station Rock 101's Facebook page. The 76 seconds-long clip sees Collective Soul playing one of their biggest hits "Shine", which is frequently heard in 101.3 FM's rotation. While shot vertically, the station staffer filming had a very straight on view of the stage from where they were, and it puts a good emphasis on the fans on the floor enjoying the show. Strong rendition, if slightly slowed down, so give Collective Soul's clip a watch below!

That's all for today, but we'll have more from the Our Lady Peace show when/if it surfaces, and more news on the site next week! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Our Lady Peace), The Dany Laj/Handsome Sandwich Concert Preview, And More!!

For today's news post, I wanted to tackle the huge LOCAL CONCERT ALERT that has been the talk of local rock fans over the past few days, along with the last straggler from this weekend's hard rock concert preview slate, and a new cover video from earlier this month, so here's what you should know on this Saturday morning!

Juno Award winning Toronto alternative hard rock quartet Our Lady Peace will make their long awaited return to Sault Ste. Marie on March 2nd when they headline at GFL Memorial Gardens during their 30th anniversary Canadian tour! A staple of domestic rock radio thanks to hit songs like "Starseed", "Superman's Dead", and "Innocent", this will be O.L.P.'s first local concert since they headlined River Rave '98 in Richards Landing during the Homecoming 1998 festival, and in terms of Sault Ste. Marie proper, they have not played in city limits since headlining at The Princess Theatre in 1996. How they've went almost 27 years since playing up here is beyond me, but it will be great to see Our Lady Peace back next year, and hopefully there's a huge turnout of rock fans in March! Lead singer Raine Maida & bassist Duncan Coutts remain from their 1990s shows here, now joined by guitarist Steve Mazur and drummer Jason Pierce.

Local fans may recognize Jason as the live/session drummer for Treble Charger from their initial 2012 reunion until 2015, wherein he played with them locally at their 2013 Searchmont fundraiser at The Water Tower Pub and their 2015 Bon Soo concert at The Machine Shop. Jason himself isn't from here, but it is neat to see him come back to town for another big concert! Joining Our Lady Peace on tour next year are Georgia alternative rock mainstays Collective Soul, who will be familiar to many 1990s-early 2000s rock fans from hit songs like "Shine", "December", and "Precious Declaration". I believe this will be their first show here, and given how often they're still heard on Rock 101, Collective Soul should pull many fans alone with their familiar alt-rock classics! A third touring band is to be announced for the western Canada portion of the tour, which ends in the Soo, so don't go looking for Wintersleep or Ash Molloy.

Tickets for this all ages concert go on sale on Thursday at this link and at the Gardens' in-person box office, and they will start at $75 apiece, with packages also available with early entry, included merchandise, and autographs/meet & greets. It's been a very long time for Our Lady Peace fans to wonder why they don't ever play closer to here than Sudbury, so I hope this concert is a smash hit in five months' time! I've never been the biggest fan myself, but I respect O.L.P. and Raine's activism, and I want this concert to do well so that more GFL Memorial Gardens can bring in more big rock shows in the future! Visit the above links for much more on Our Lady Peace & Collective Soul's local date next year!

Next up, let's finally cap off this weekend's concert previews with TONIGHT's concert from alternative hard rock quintet Handsome Sandwich, who will make their debut at the Fraternal Order of Eagles club at 246 Wellington Street West when they open for Montreal power pop veterans Dany Laj & The Looks! Readers may recall seeing Dany Laj and crew here five times in the 2010s, including a Rockstar Bar show in 2017 that the original cover trio version of Handsome Sandwich opened, and while not a hard rock act, it will be good to see them back for the first time in five years! Also, David Briggs from SooToday's North Bay-based sister site BayToday actually interviewed Dany (who himself lived in North Bay and Sudbury in the past) for this article cross-posted on SooToday earlier this week. Tonight's concert will be Handsome Sandwich's first since last month's Northern Vibe Festival and first in the Soo since Poutine Feast.

A presentation of Piecing It Together Shows (née Dryer Fire), tonight's concert has a 7:00 PM start time, no age limit, and tickets running for $15 in advance at this link or $20 at the door. Hopefully tonight's concert is a solid draw, especially given the competition from other shows tonight, let alone the relatively new venue (which P.I.T.S. will run again when Skoff headlines there next month), but if you saw and liked The Looks' upbeat garage rock in the 2010s, or want to order another sandwich, head to The Eagles Club tonight! Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and here's Handsome Sandwich live earlier this year!

Finally, here's the first new live concert video uploaded to The Dive Gastro Pub's new Facebook page (I still don't know why they deleted the old one and started over), and it features Dodge This/ex-Phatstick frontman Jason Taillefer covering Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" during his solo Patio Play concert there this past Saturday! He's joined by an uncredited guest singer, who is definitely not his Dodge This bandmate Jamie July. Truth be told, I had trouble identifying the song at first because the 30 seconds-long clip focuses on the bridge, but it's well done for hair metal fans, so check it out below, and we'll have more on Dodge This on the SMS soon!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's CD review and more on the SMS soon! Thanks everyone!

Mike Haggith Updates, Plus Some Long Overdue Concert Videos!!

Here's another new news post for your Saturday afternoon reading, and while it ends with some newly discovered concert footage from a show late last year, we're mostly focusing on some recent news and notes from a prominent solo musician. Here's what you should know!

In advance of tonight's final weekly #LockdownLive (more on that in a bit), local/Thompson, Manitoba alt-hard rock solo artist Mike Haggith was interviewed in this SooToday article by contributor & fellow local musician Chris Belsito on Monday, so what can be learned here? In the interview proper, Mike discusses his love of aviation (his day job and what he took at college here), his time in Sault Ste. Marie as a musician and fan of the local scene, his musical influences, his progression in studio recordings, his new CD "If Ever Comes The Day", the issues he feels personally about, and the postponed CD release show that we hope will take place in November. Aside from some nice insights about the album sessions and how Mike recorded it, there's no real scoops here, but it's a nice article done by two musicians with a lot of mutual respect, and it's a solid read for fans, so be sure to check it out above!

Next up, let's stay on a Mike Haggith trajectory, as his post-show for #LockdownLive XII took place on his Facebook page on Tuesday, so what is there to take in here? After promoting the above article he discussed what went down in last week's Windsor-heavy #LockdownLive episode, while also lamenting that he couldn't play at the Nickel Days festival in Thompson due to the pandemic, and promoted the free release of "Take Back The Moon" on Bandcamp on Sunday only for National Indigenous Peoples Day. Regarding future episodes, tonight's #LockdownLive XIII will be "The Quarterly Report", where Mike will spotlight the past installments, but this will be the last weekly installment due to the continued re-opening as the curve flattens (viewership has taken a hit since then too). As such, Mike is moving to a monthly format for future episodes, but he will open polls to determine optimal airdates that will work for his and fans' schedules.

Regarding last week's share contest for the person with the most engaged share of the live-stream getting to pick Mike's mandatory cover today, the winner (who got 5 likes and 54 comments) was regular viewer Tianna Rice, who nominated that Mike cover The Jonas Brothers' "What A Man Gotta Do", which Mike has a great initial reaction to! Surprisingly recent pick too, as that song only came out in January. Look for him to cover that one (reportedly in his dragon onesie again) at the end of tonight's episode! As for the fan-requested original on the post-show, Tianna requested the somewhat adult "The Snake" from Mike's 2015 CD "The Warinside", which he performs before wrapping the video and promoting tonight's episode once more. Entertaining and informative episode that helps set the groundwork for the series' future, so tune in tonight to hear #LockdownLive XIII, and check out the whole post-show from earlier this week below!



To close today's post, here's some overdue new live concert videos that we haven't featured on here! Foreign concept, right? During our research on the Oh!No Collective's YouTube channel for yesterday's feature profile, I was reminded that the videos there (and much more) were also on their Facebook page, and as it turns out, we never discussed the last concert footage they uploaded there before the pandemic began. On December 21st, the former Six, Two, Oh. hosted Oh!Noel, a mixed-genre holiday concert at The Rockstar Bar featuring surf rock instrumental band The Dynowaves and rappers Rick E & Kodex, and click on their names to see their well shot videos. The other band on this night was local alt-punk trio A Dire Setback, who Oh!No filmed twice for Facebook, including their cover of Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" and, as embedded below, their original "Forget This Memory". Nice Christmas attire on the guys, including what appears to be an ugly sweater on Nick!

We're almost as far away from Christmas as you can get in the year (apologies for the delay), but these are fun videos overall from a good charitable event, and  while the audio is somewhat muffled at times, A Dire Setback and the other acts all perform to their strengths! Give these videos a watch above & below, and hopefully concerts will return in some form soon!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's CD review on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

YouTube Channel Profile Series: Oh!No Collective & Jonathan Spike

It's now time for this month's YouTube Channel Profiles, as we continue our monthly spotlight of YouTube channels with content at least half devoted to local metal, hard rock, and/or punk musicians, in order to give them promotion for current readers to hopefully encourage hits and subscriptions! This month's random selection gave us a channel with just three videos from two different concerts, so I picked a single-video channel to round things out with, and there's some interesting stuff here for metal and punk fans alike! Here's what you should know!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh!No Collective (http://youtube.com/channel/UCOFGm_V7b2sbcm8BR67suSw/)
 
Owner: A member of local concert promoters Oh!No Collective (formerly known as Six, Two, Oh. and Oh! Right Arm Promotions). Their exact identity isn't given, but my best guess would be co-founder Jamie Vincent

Channel Timeline: Launched on April 13th, 2019; Videos uploaded on December 9th, 2019

Channel Summary: Quietly launched prior to the agency's name change in September 2019, the Oh!No Collective channel only features three videos so far from two different concerts that they put on locally late last year.
 
Why You Should Watch: I recommend giving this channel a look to see what the Oh!No Collective was up to before the pandemic, and while they haven't posted much there yet, we may see more here when shows can safely happen again. That said, the Oh!No Facebook page has much more videos from their late 2019 concert slate to check out, including all three videos on the YouTube channel. If there were plans to re-post more Facebook videos on YouTube, then that has clearly fallen by the wayside in 2020. 

Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

Black Mastiff at Loplops on Oct 21 '19: The earliest video here (but last to be uploaded) is of Edmonton stoner/hard rock trio Black Mastiff headlining at LopLops Lounge on October 21st, and they can be seen here playing two songs (starting with their original "Downed By A Sound"). Their doomy southern rock has a nice groove to it in this performance, captured from two different camera angles, and while scheduling on Election Day (and a Monday) didn't help attendance whatsoever, this is a good introduction to Black Mastiff! Videos of local openers Man Feelings & Chase Wigmore were filmed for Facebook, but were not similarly uploaded to the YouTube channel.



SlumShine - Back In Blue & Blue Shift at Outspoken Brewing Dec 6 '19: Oh!No's other two videos are of local acoustic punk solo project Slumshine's headlining date at Outspoken Brewing on December 6th, including of their rendition of "Thrashmaster 10 Billion" and, in the channel's most popular video, their non-album songs "Back In Blue" and "Blue Shift". Well shot videos of Brent (pink ski mask in tow) in his element with these aggressively acoustic original songs, and the crowd sounds receptive! Despite a "special guest" also being advertised, Oh!No did not film that act for Facebook.

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Jonathan Spike (http://youtube.com/channel/UCgc4HhITS4PLqPbLOMqUwtQ)
 
Owner: YouTube user Jonathan Spike, who I don't believe is locally based

Channel Timeline: Launched on October 17th, 2013; Only video uploaded on March 23rd, 2014

Channel Summary: Jonathan's only video is of local/Toronto indie/punk veterans Treble Charger's music video for their hit original song "American Psycho" from their 2000 CD "Wide Awake Bored". As it turns out, this is a re-upload of the exact same copy of this video from 98Watts' channel in 2006, complete with Shrapnull Productions credits from an even earlier uploader. However, Jonathan did include song lyrics in the description, and he promised to start uploading gaming videos if he got one subscriber (which has happened, but no new videos of any kind have followed suit). Visit our profile of 98Watts channel from 2017 to read our full recap on the "American Psycho" video, but fans of Treble Charger's pop punk era won't be disappointed!


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I hope you guys liked this month's  YouTube Channel Profiles! Next month in this series, we're back to a profile of a single channel, as our random selection is for Sault Michigan classical metal band Theatre of Night's channel! Consider it a Christmas in July feature, if you go for such things. Look for this on or around July 26th, and for more news soon! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Femur And Late & Loud), Plus New Videos!!

Here's a new news post on this rainy Sunday, and it's devoted to some big new video updates from a pair of prominent local acts, plus two notable LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for next month! Here's what you should know!

Thunder Bay "pisscore" trio Femur will return to the Soo area for the second time this year when they headline at Room 21 on Saturday, October 5th! Some readers will have just seen this band at the third annual Oh!No festival in Leeburn earlier this month as one of the later bands on night #2, but this will be their first ever advertised concert in Sault Ste. Marie proper. Femur impressed many Oh!No attendees with their harsh and unforgiving brand of original hardcore punk, and it'll be great to see them back just four weeks later for an encore! Another act from Oh!No III will be opening this concert, namely local cybergrind solo act Malignant Neoplasm, which you may recall is a side project of C.T.W.'s Tyler Gibson, though much like Slumshine, Tyler played under a mask in Leeburn when representing Malignant Neoplasm. Blood Shed loyalists won't wanna miss this one either! Like at the festival, this is promoted by the former Six, Two, Oh., now known as the Oh!No Collective, who now utilize that full name.

"Co." didn't stand for "company", I wouldn't have guessed that! In any event, this will be the Oh!No crew's first metal concert post-renaming, so come down to Room 21 for all of the action next weekend! This concert has a 10:00 PM start time, it is a 19+ event, and while a $10 suggested cover charge is advertised, so is the "pay what you can" option. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details!

Next up, here's a surprise, as local classic metal quartet Late & Loud will reunite for one night only on Thursday, October 10th with a headlining concert at The Rockstar Bar! Many local fans will recall their well received active run from 2010-2014, and after over 5 years away, the guys will return for this special concert, intended as a fundraiser for bassist Benn Garside's upcoming wedding to ex-Danger Cats bassist Jamie VanSchooneveld. If you're keeping track at home, this will be the second marriage between the two bands this year, joining Josh & Kate this summer (what are the odds?!) It is great to see Late & Loud back, if only for one night, so if you've missed the Humane Society Battle winners in the mid-late 2010s, don't bypass this one! The surprise opening acts are DJ Seith and his hip-hop duo project Planet Rock, and while not perfect genre-matches, they should keep ther party vibe going! I don't know if Seith will be mixing songs between sets, or if he's just playing with St. James.

A $10 cover charge is in effect on this night, expect a 19+ age limit, and while an early 8:00 PM start time is advertised, I doubt the bands will be playing that early, potential DJ Seith mixing aside. Note that the poster implies that Late & Loud are "returning to the stage one last time", which could very well be true, but we heard similar finality in August 2014. In any event, this should be a must for fans and friends of Late & Loud who've missed them in past 5 years, so visit the official Facebook event page for more details!

Also today, local alt-punk trio A Dire Setback released their long-teased debut music video to their YouTube channel yesterday! Of course, this is for their song "Kicking & Screaming", which is the first single from their forthcoming debut album, which their Facebook page newly confirmed yesterday will be self-titled. If you've seen prior teasers for the video, you'll know that property destruction appeared to be a common theme in the video, and now we get context as to why that is (the song lyrics may have given that away.) If you're hoping to see the full band playing the song, then you may be disappointed (only frontman Chris Nielsen appears on camera), but it's well shot and captures the lyrics and requisite emotion well! Give the full video a look below, stay tuned for more on "A Dire Setback", and don't miss the Michale Graves concert on Saturday!

We'll close with the latest from local/Thompson, Manitoba alt/hard rock musician Mike Haggith, who we haven't heard anything substantive from regarding his solo project since his trip home last month, so what's new to report? Well, Mike posted this teaser video on his Facebook page last night, saying that he's "been hard at work behind the scenes, and we're switching gears a little." The video proper features a computer monitor with what looks like the cover artwork for a new(?) album named "If Ever Comes The Day", plus a 30 second sample of a new song named "The Best You Never Had" that clearly has a full electric band behind it, compared to the music he had showcased from his upcoming solo album "Bridges", which leaned towards acoustic content. Is Mike revising/shelving "Bridges", or is this just another album he's working on too? Remember that he has also announced plans this year for a live album from Nickel Days in Thompson and a remaster of "A Place Of Our Own", neither of which is out yet.

Mike does have a lot on his plate on the best of days (remember what his day job is), but if this is basically "Bridges" being reworked or replaced in his discography, I can't complain about it having more of a rock edge with a full band, be it all him or with other collaborators. Time will tell what exactly is going on, but give the teaser video a look below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and updates on the site soon! Thanks everyone!