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 ALERTS (Tarnished) & More Concert Previews, Including Our Lady Peace!!

As promised, let's cap off this weekend's hard rock concert previews in today's post (later than I'd have liked due to personal commitments and shovelling), and it mostly covers shows taking place tomorrow and on Sunday, including the big one and its new local openers, and some new videos. First, we'll lead off with LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for next month, so here's what you should know!

Sault Michigan hard rock/classic metal band Tarnished will return to The Northern Pines Lounge at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino on Friday, March 7th & Saturday, March 8th! Announced yesterday via their Facebook event page, these appear to be fill-in/replacement bookings, as The American Band were originally advertised for next weekend on Kewadin's entertainment page. A reason for their withdrawal hasn't been announced to my knowledge, but kudos to Tarnished for stepping in with their hard rock attack! Of course, Tarnished were scheduled to play at The Rapids Lounge in the Soo this past weekend before the shows were cancelled due to the ransomware attack-prompted closure of all Kewadin branches, but that has been sufficiently resolved, and the St. Ignace Kewadin re-opens today (no word yet on the Soo Kewadin makeup dates). Click here for more details on the casinos' re-opening plans.

The event page also confirms that Rhythm & Brews' Chris Leask and Ron Suchey will join Alex and Josh next weekend, as they have at all non-battle gigs since the summer (if they have joined permanently, no one has 100% said publically on social media). Next month's Tarnished shows have 21+ age limits, 9:00 PM start times, and no cover charges. Visit the above links for more details, and stay tuned for more from the E.U.P. soon!

Next up, let's resume this weekend's hard rock concert previews by heading north to Sault Ontario, where local southern hard rock trio Bone Yard 225 will return to Reggie's Place for concerts TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT! No strangers whatsoever to Reggie's over this winter season, these will be Greg, Alex, and Warren's first shows at this Queen Street East staple in two weeks. Despite today's winter storm, band members' personal Facebook pages have promised that the show (or as they've taken to calling them lately, "sermon" or "gospel") will go on as scheduled, but of course, be safe on the roads if you're coming out, as snow is expected until after midnight tonight (or come tomorrow). Tonight and tomorrow's shows are 19+ affairs at 9:30 PM with no cover charges. Visit the above links for more details, and for a preview, we have two new videos of "the dirty three" to check out!

Wednesday's vertical video captures "studio shenanigans" of the guys having fun, seemingly while recording a new original song, though they have yet to confirm that elsewhere online. If true, fans should be excited, and you even see a lyric sheet at the end! Embedded below is a brand new video of the guys playing their newest original "Fuck!" at Soo Blaster this past Saturday, and it's a really nice quality horizontal video that shows off the stage setup as they played a larger venue than normal for them! Fun and lively (if lyrically colourful) performance, so check it out below!

Elsewhere downtown TOMORROW NIGHT (not tonight due to Friday DJ nights) is the return of local hard rock quintet HeadFirst to Shooters Downstairs Lounge! This is the first in an (at least) three show engagement for HeadFirst that will see them not just playing their lively and varied hard rock covers and originals, but also being the namesake for exclusive cocktails, shots, and food items that will only be on sale during these concerts (also on March 15th and April 12th). Buying an official band t-shirt will also net you a $5 drink voucher, so there's lots of perks for fans to come out tomorrow! The guys have also teased possibly playing new originals from their "next project", so keep that in mind as the night progresses. Tomorrow's show takes place on Dennis Street at 9:30 PM with a 19+ age limit and no cover charge. Visit the official Facebook event page for more details, and here's HeadFirst live!

Finally, here's the main event of the weekend in Sault Ontario, as Juno Award-winning Toronto alt-hard rock quartet Our Lady Peace will play their first local concert in twenty-seven years on SUNDAY NIGHT at GFL Memorial Gardens! With Canadian rock radio hits like "Clumsy", "Somewhere Out There", and "Sound The Alarm" dotting their lengthy career, this show (their first in the region since River Rave '98 in Richards Landing) has been highly anticipated for months, and hopefully Our Lady Peace deliver an excellent night full of classics and newer cuts after all this time! Note that this will also be drummer Jason Pierce's first local concert in a decade, after serving as Treble Charger's touring drummer from 2012-2015. Georgia alternative rock veterans Collective Soul will open in their local debut, and Rock 101 listeners will be very familiar with their litany of radio hits like "Gel", "Heavy", and "The World I Know". Not the heaviest band going, but Collective Soul get a solid response from attendees at the arena on Sunday!

In a late confirmation this morning, local indie punk quintet The Northwest have been added as local openers on SUNDAY, a'la 2022's Marianas Trench show at the Gardens! For one reason or another, The Northwest have been on a concert hiatus since the summer of 2023, so it is great to see them back, let alone at such a huge event! Presented by Rock 101 (this show was announced prior to The Fox's launch), this all ages & 7:00 PM concert is officially SOLD OUT, but check in online at this link or at the box office if you're curious about anything opening up late. O.L.P.'s long awaited return will be one of the shows of the year, so visit the above links for more on Sunday's festivities, and here's Raine & crew live!

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

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (CureCon), Alberta Intrusion Concert Preview, And More!!

Before our review of last night's Soo Art Rocks! concert makes the site, we have a new news post for your Saturday afternoon, so what's in store? Some assorted recent news and notes, a preview of a concert going down TOMORROW NIGHT, and leading off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for an intriguing concert event later this year that, while having a lot of blanks to fill, has a lot of promise, so here's what you should know!

Local classic metal quartet Project 421 will reportedly be on the lineup for CureCon, an ambitious convention on Saturday, August 12th where local vendors and artists will come together to support each other, donate to regional charities, and support local businesses. To be held at the Royal Canadian Legion on Great Northern Road in a rare concert at that venue, this event is a co-production of Live705 and upstart local company Ma Lady Menace, ran by local entrepreneur Douglas Ewen. I'm unsure what the company name means, but Ma Lady Menace specialize in selling "crash course crates", which are basically LootCrate-esque boxes filled with just content for fans or newcomers of a media franchise or band, and now they're experimenting with live event promotion and plan to work with Live705 on some events. Very intriguing, we'll have to see where this all goes, and Ma Lady Menace are now linked on the SMS!

As far as I can tell, Project 421 (who confirmed their involvement on their Facebook page) are the only band to publically say they're performing at CureCon so far, in their first announced concert since Halloween, though we may see them somewhere prior yet. Great to see the guys back regardless, they've been missed! Live705's involvement would suggest that A Dire Setback are playing too, but I have not heard confirmation of any other acts yet. Ma Lady Menace have noted that merchandise tables and advertising are available towards the convention proper, but I'm unsure if they're seeking bands the same way or have groups in mind internally. For more details on that end of things, click here! The live band portion of CureCon will be at 8:00 PM on August 12th after the convention portion wraps up, which itself starts at 12:00 PM. Admission will be $20 in advance or $25 at the door for the whole CureCon events, or $15 for just the convention or concert alone.

The concert itself is a 19+ event, but CureCon's prior events have $5 entry for children 3-12 years old, and kids under 3 are free, while there will reportedly attached contests and band Crash Crates, details presumably forthcoming. There are a lot of unknowns yet regarding CureCon, like what kind of convention this will shape up to be (Comics? Home show? Anything & everything?), the remaining band lineup, and more, but I like the ambition on display, and I'm definitely curious to hear more details regarding CureCon, Ma Lady Menace, and other attached entities! Stay tuned for updates!

Next up, here's a pair of concert previews for shows over the next couple of nights, starting with The Alberta Intrusion, a concert featuring three touring punk bands from out west that are headlining at The New American Pub TOMORROW NIGHT! Those three bands are The bands in question are Edmonton pop punk trio The Old Wives, Edmonton punk rock standouts Worst Days Down, and Calgary punk quintet The River Jacks, and they should deliver their own entertaining takes on the genre tomorrow, so be sure to check all of them out! Of note, some readers will have seen The River Jacks at The Algonquin Pub two years ago as a headlining act during their Gonqshow concert series, so if you wanted an encore, here it finally is! Local punk trio Stegadeth (replacing Talk Shit) will open the proceedings, with frontman Bill Bennett having previously opened for The River Jacks locally with Stereo North, and they should be a fine fit tomorrow, so don't be late!

Promoted by Six, Two, Oh. in their first fully promoted concert in over two months, you can apparently still get $5 advance tickets at Advance tickets are apparently now available at Northland Music, Case's Music, The Rad Zone and Big Guns Barbershop near the library downtown, though note that the price jumps to $7 at the door. A 9:00 PM start time is listed, and this is a 19+ event. This should be a great concert for punk fans, with a trifecta of intriguing Alberta acts and some local action from Stegadeth in store, so don't miss out tomorrow night, and here's The Old Wives live!



Finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news items from the last while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist name:

• Local blues/hard rock trio Electric Church are reportedly working on their debut studio album, and have been recording tracks at Mission Control Studios! We were first alerted to this when the studio shared a picture on their Facebook page of Spencer, Elijah, and Beau with Dustin Jones, and the band confirmed on their own Facebook page that they are "working up some new songs... for the album." Very cool to hear, hopefully more updates come out soon!
• The Gore Street Cafe will apparently be forced to relocate to a new venue in July, as per owner Nicole Dyble on their Facebook page on Monday. Plans reportedly called for the cafe to leave the laundromat at month's end, but for "a number of reasons", things have been extended a month. Despite many varied concerts, events, and a fan friendly business model, the cafe has had a rough go in the past year, and while Nicole hopes to find a new venue, she admitted that "the future of the cafe is uncertain." Hopefully things work out for the cafe, they're doing great things there, and fingers crossed that they find a new locale this summer!
• Were you added by a Facebook friend account called "TheSault MusicScene" yesterday? If you were curious, I am NOT behind it, and name aside, I don't believe it's related to the early-mid 2000s music website. The new page is intended to help promote & advertise local concerts of any genre, and while they haven't said who's running the page publically yet, I believe the lead administrator is a musician & former promoter.  If this page is maintained and kept up with, it could be a great resource, so keep it in mind! However, as a personal Facebook account with most posts hidden from non-friends, I can't link it here unless they relax the privacy settings so it's publically vieawable.

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our Soo Art Rocks! preview next! Thanks everyone!