Today's post is devoted to Kewadin Casino concert videos, new and old alike, and we'll start with the Skid Row-headlined concert at The Dreammakers Theater in Sault Ste. Marie on March 23rd, which took on new significance when frontman Erik Gronwall left the New Jersey glam metal band just four days later to focus on his health (Erik is a leukemia survivor & bone marrow transplant recipient with a compromised immune system). In fact, the Sault Ste. Marie show was the final one with Erik, so how's that for timing? Our first post with videos from the show went up on the day his departure was announced! Of course, our best thoughts go out to Erik, whose health actually caused this show/tour to be postponed from the fall as it was, and for my money, he was the best singer Skid Row had brought on since Sebastian Bach left! Halestorm's Lzzy Hale will fill in temporarily with Skid Row in their upcoming festival dates.
As for the Soo show, the ever prolific Christopher Paci was in attendance to film all three bands on the 23rd for his YouTube channel, filming Skid Row in eight videos! He shot them playing "Big Guns", "18 & Life", "Psycho Therapy", "Time Bomb", "I Remember You", "The Gang's All Here", "Youth Gone Wild", and as embedded below, their set-opener "Slave To The Grind". Chris was further away from the stage than in prior local videos that we've seen, but we do see more of the stage at once here, and it was an honest sell out based on the audience! The sound here is a little soft but you hear everything you need to, and Erik was nailing these songs even on his final date, so check them out above & below!
Next up, Chris also filmed six videos from co-headlining Los Angeles hard rock quintet Buckcherry's set, including "Say Fuck It" (they titled it, not me), "Hellbound", "Sorry", "Gluttony", their extended & covers-infused "Crazy Bitch" medley, and as embedded below, their opening song "Lit Up". I've never been a huge fan of theirs, and Josh's voice is inconsistent across these videos, especially later in the set, but they put in an energetic performance for fans, and they've always been good to the Twin Saults, so give Buckcherry's newest local concert videos a watch above & below!
As for opening Philadelphia hair metal quartet Britny Fox, Chris filmed them playing "Plenty Of Love", "Girlschool", and as embedded below, "Dream On". Even with a mostly different lineup than when fans last saw Britny Fox in town, they sound good for glam metal fans on these videos, and for better or worse, less fans had cameras rolling so you get a clearer view of the band than you do with the later acts. Check these out for yourselves above & below as well!
Finally, let's wind back to 2014 for a video that I didn't feature on the site in the first place. Back in November 2014, Staind frontman Aaron Lewis came to Sault Ste. Marie for the first time since launching his solo career as a country musician, and while that obviously doesn't fit our genre range, he did and still does cover Staind ballads in his solo sets. At the time, I covered videos filmed by attendee Dana Howland on here, as she filmed Aaron playing Staind's "It's Been Awhile" and covering Pearl Jam's "Black" (which was a solo radio hit for him years before he acutally went solo). Either due to my own omission or due to that post being written before she uploaded it (it's been nine years, I don't remember), I never acknowledged that she also filmed Aaron playing the Staind hit "Right Here Waiting" at Kewadin on this night, so it is embedded below! This came to my attention because it was re-uploaded as a "Shorts" video.
As such, her Staind videos from 2014, this one included, turned up in their own special section when searching for recent Kewadin videos. "Shorts" are not as restrictive as Facebook "Reels", and her videos were vertical and focused on a solo musician right along, so I won't complain about the formatting here (no comment on Aaron's political views either, but this show was before a lot of that became more prominent). The stage lighting is VERY over-exposed here, but Aaron's performance is on point for Staind fans, so give this belated local concert video a watch below!
That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site soon! Thanks everyone!
For our 25th straight day of SMS updates, we have this month's YouTube Channel Profile for you guys! As always, this monthly feature series looks at 1-3 YouTube channels with (at least) a 50% concentration of local metal/hard rock-relevant videos, featuring information, profiles, recommendations, and videos to check out from each! Today marks our first one-channel Sault Michigan profile in 10 months (even though the owner's from Sault Ontario), and if you're a major concertgoer across the river, this will definitely be appealing, so read on below for this month's YouTube Channel Profile! (Updated on October 15th, 2013)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Channel Timeline: Launched on April 29th, 2009; Videos posted from then through August 2011
Channel Summary: Despite being a resident of Sault Ontario, Dino's YouTube channel is entirely comprised of concert videos from The Dreammaker's Theater at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino in 2009 & 2011! Attending at least five during his use of the channel (including three hard rock concerts), Dino launched his channel with four videos from the Staind/Hoobastank concert on April 28th, 2009, later adding to it with two videos from one of ZZ Top's shows here that September. After a hiatus of over a year for new videos, Dino returned with three 2011 videos from the Cinderella concert on April 14th, following up with one video of Loverboy's show there on June 3rd, and closing with a video of Whitesnake's local show on August 26th of that year.
Why Should You Watch: Because this is a quality resource of major Kewadin Casino concerts, even if three or four of them don't lean heavier! Though Dino's seats varied depending on the show, he has good camera work for the most part, and the audio of each band is pretty clear, so it's definitely a good spot to check out recent Dreammaker's Theater concert footage! Note however that Dino hasn't visibly used his channel in over a year & a half, in case that changes your mind on subscribing, but hopefully he'll film some more local concert footage at some point again!
Our Recommended Videos To Check Out: staind at kewedin casino: For his first Kewadin concert videos, Dino uploaded four videos from the April 2009 show featuring Massachusetts hard rock notables Staind and California alt-rock openers Hoobastank, including two videos of each. All four are filmed at a far angle from the stage, which can be somewhat jittery, but luckily, his view of the stage is fairly clear, and the audio picks up well! The featured video here is a slightly more aggressive take of Staind's song "So Far Away" (plus crowd sing-along), while his other Staind video was of their hit "Right Here". The Hoobastank videos include their songs "My Turn" and "The Reason", but the latter doesn't seem to load on YouTube consistently.
dfunk 2: Though his most viewed video his his Loverboy clip, Dino's most watched metal performance video is of Pennsylvania glam metal quintet Cinderella playing their song "Nobody's Fool" at The Dreammaker's Theater on April 14th, 2011! One of three Cinderella videos that he shot (including their songs "Shake Me" & "Somebody Save Me"), Dino got a much closer angle of this show than he had for Staind, with a very clear & close viewpoint and nice quality audio that captures Cinderella's sound well for the most part, but if you prefer heavier songs, his other Cinderella videos will be more up your alley!
MOV02361.MPG: Dino's last concert video on his channel is of British metal legends Whitesnake playing their song "Bad Boys" at the Soo Kewadin in August 2011, and it's very similar to his Cinderella videos by his crowd placement (though maybe a bit further.) I like that he shot a song that wasn't one of their more overplayed hit singles, and though the audio lacks a bit, Whitesnake sound great on this heavier late 1980s track! However, this his only video from this concert, but other channels will hook you up if you want to see other local Whitesnake clips!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope you guys liked this month's YouTube Channel Profile! Next month in this series, we'll return to Sault Ontario for another single-channel profile, as I've randomly selected YouTube user stumpypet1's channel, which features 4 videos from defunct local hard rock band Quite Frankly in late 2009! Should be enough for it's own self-contained profile, so watch out for that on or around April 20th, and stay tuned for Sunday night concert previews tomorrow, plus more news! Thanks everyone!
Let's kick off August in a positive way with a bunch of assorted news and notes from the last little while, including new members of a new local band, a local musician's entry in a major contest, a newly revamped Facebook group for area musicians, and some Woods of Ypres related updates, so without any further adieu, let's get this post going!
New Sault Michigan metal band NoXcape (formerly MK-Ultra) have officially announced the additions of Krosswalk guitarist Joey Beairl and former Absolute drummer Justin Lawless to the band, rounding out their full five-piece lineup. The news was quietly broken on their Facebook page yesterday. Joey's a well known guitarist from his work in bands like Krosswalk, Shift, Wild Fate, and Kickback (plus the Guitar Studio rock camp), and it's great to see him back in a local hard rock band! Justin rejoins his former Absolute bandmates Ben Huyck and Bill Spence in NoXcape, as I had been speculating since they hinted on old MK-Ultra pages that their new drummer was named Justin. Nice to see them back together, they had very nice chemistry in Absolute! However, NoXcape are definitely a different animal than Absolute, with an arsenal of original material with a nu metal influence already raring to go for their debut show at Dan's Place in Rudyard this coming weekend! Should be interesting to see how NoXcape sound this weekend, and we'll have much more from them as we hear updates, so stay tuned for more!
Next up, have you been noticing a lot of posts, statuses, and replies on your Facebook walls relating to a Facebook group called "Musicians Wanted (Sault Ste. Marie, ON)"? This has actually been around since March 2009 when (I believe) Half Past guitarist Alain Fletcher started it, but just in the past day, former Wishbone guitarist Jeremy Salatuk has been spearheading a revival of the group, complete with an upgrade to the new Facebook group format & mass invites to new members, and it's sure gaining steam! The group's aim, as it was in 2009, is to help musicians either looking for bands or new band members to connect and help make connections to that end. Since the relaunch, I'm seeing a lot of good activity from local musicians of all genres looking to get back in the swing of the local scene (including some hard rock and metal artists), and if you're in a similar boat, you should definitely join and see what you can do! Musicians in town who want to gig and play live should have those opportunities, and hopefully this group's second wind will help that become a reality! Join (or request to join) at the above links!
(Also, the group gave me a bit of news relating to Caveman Morrison, as frontman Tym Morrison confirmed in a post there that the band are basically on hold until the winter due to Tym's lengthy solo acoustic schedule. I expected we'd see them sparingly or not at all until later this year due to all the Saturday bookings, but it's nice to see some public word on that! However, if you're craving electric gigs with Tym Morrison, go see the Hollow reunion this weekend!)
Now, here's a cool note on a local artist's entry in a new music contest! We just mentioned Half Past guitarist Alain Fletcher above, but he has a neat recent update to share, as he's entered a contest to be featured on a Staind song! In cooperation with Indaba Music, Staind are looking for guitarists to send in their own guitar solos for the solo section on the multi-platinum Massachussets hard rock band's new song "Not Again" from their upcoming self-titled album! One lucky (and talented) winner will have their solo featured on the iTunes deluxe version of their new album, and will also win a Mike Mushok signature guitar, a $1,000 Guitar Center gift card, an autographed copy of the new Staind album, and a one month Tab-Pro subscription to Ultimate-Guitar.com! 10 runners up from the 20 most viewed submissions will win an autographed CD as well. Alain's entered under the handle "Dude705" to try and win the contest, and you can hear his solo at this locaton! Sounds good, it fits with the song's pacing, and it'd be awesome to see him win! Now, the winner is picked by judges, not fan votes, but give his submission lots of listens so he can make the top 20! Unfortunately, we can't see a ranking of the top solos, so give him lots of views, cause you never know! Check his solo out (or register yourself?!) at the above links, and his solo starts about 25 seconds into the clip. Best of luck, Al!
And finally for today, here's the latest from local doom metal band Woods of Ypres! Firstly, the band has finally publically ackowledged the Madden brothers' departure, with both having been quietly removed from their Facebook page's lineup. No public statement has been made concerning their exit, but knowing from past trends, I didn't expect one, and we likely won't hear more until the band announces their replacements. Positive news now, as George Washburn from the website Rock Music Critic posted a review of "Woods IV: The Green Album" onto said website this past Wednesday! He calls it "epic in scope" with lush and thick music, but compares listening to the whole album with eating too much candy: It's very good, but it can be too much after a while. Very positive review though, click here to check it out! And finally, frontman David Gold has posted an interesting sample of a remix of the band's "Woods 4.5" song "You Were The Light" onto his YouTube channel, as done by guitarist Joel Violette! It's just a 79 second clip, but it shows a spacier techno vibe than on the original, and it's an interesting listen! David's also open to fan remixes, so if you're at all interested in making your own remix of the song, e-mail davidypres@gmail.com for the master files. This could be cool if it picks up steam, but check out the sample of Joel's "You Were The Light" remix below! Hopefully the full copy leaks soon!
That's all for now, but if I don't have a new news post later tonight, our next post will be this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" feature post, so definitely look for that tomorrow! Thanks everyone!
So, are you guys craving some new local metal news and updates? As always, I've got your fix! Today, we have potential news on a certain postponed major concert, more videos (seems like we're getting piled with those lately) and some cool Kewadin Casino related stuff!! I have more assorted news to tack on to tomorrow's post as well, so keep note of that! Here we go!
So Kiss fans, have you been voting in this month's poll about your current feelings on the upcoming Kiss show? Vote on the right if you haven't yet. I won't publicize vote totals, because I don't want to swing voting in any choice's favour, but if you're voting for "I don't think they're coming at all", this might make you reconsider. Now, because of the December postponement, Kiss guaranteed we'd be getting a concert this summer, right? Well, FINALLY, official band sources (as in, Gene Simmons' Twitter account) have confirmed that Kiss will kick off their next North American tour in August! Gene's latest tweet says "...And yes, KISS is coming to North America again, starting Aug. See you all then. " Sure, a Sault Ste. Marie date isn't explicitly implied, but they have promised they'd be back, and they are a band of the word. Locally, we should know that, because they did play a makeup show in 2006 at Kewadin Casino after backing out in 2005 for that Japanese tour. Mark my words, skeptics, Kiss are coming, they will keep their word, and though maybe the show won't be announced immediately, they will, I have faith! Remember, Gene loves cash, and Kiss fans here will help with that!
Three new videos to share with you guys today, and kicking things off is a clip from the TV series Aux Weekly, which airs on the Canadian specialty channel Aux. And this video features none other than Lion Ride! Now, why would a local band be on a national cable channel? Well, it's because of their participation in The Great Canadian T-Shirt Battle, which took place on March 25th at The Hideout in Toronto! As it turns out, this battle of the bands had more going for it than just giving the top band 200 free t-shirts. The clothing company that put the battle on, Me To We Style, use organic cotton in their clothes and ensure fair wage distribution, as well as donating half their profits to Free The Children! Me To We Style put the battle on due to their affiliation with The Juno Awards and to promote sustainability within the entertainment industry.
Lion Ride themselves appear at 1:29 during some mid-performance clips for about 8 seconds. Then at 2:01, all four official members of Lion Ride are featured for a 16 second interview segment, where drummer Iron Mike Bison talks about the musical benefits this kind of event can have. Nice to see them get this kind of profile, but I have one complaint: Barely any Lion Ride music to hear, just some muffled background music of theirs during the interview. But it's still great to check out, even though they didn't win, they're winners to us! Ignore the ad at the beginning and check it out, hopefully more local bands get exposure like this soon!
Next up, SBD, the new experimental hard rock project from members of No Arrow and The Chintzy Slicks, have launched their very own YouTube channel! SBD videos had previously been hosted on frontman Dann Pichette's YouTube channel, but now those, and much more, have their own home to themselves! And by "much more", I mean 56 videos already! A number were jam session clips uploaded a few months ago, including the excessively fragmented clips of their song "Rock Paper Scissors" from Dann's channel, along with some newer jam stuff uploaded last week. But most excitingly to me is a whole pile of videos from SBD's first ever live concert, from last Friday at Foggy Notions! Looks like the band had a few camera guys filming the show, and as a result, there's tons of clips from the show online, of varying quality and length! Some even have some post-production effects (that mirrored effect in particular), and even some clips from their set breaks, including a performance by "Homeless Harry" outside of Foggy's during one of the breaks!
As for the SBD material itself, sounds good to me! Amongst covers of Pink Floyd, Mystery Machine, and Link Wray, there's lots of intriguing originals with odd titles and experimental trippiness! Some songs are more like No Arrow than I think they'd like to admit, while others try lots of unique stuff! Hard to describe some SBD stuff in ways, but that's a positive comment! It sucks that I missed the show, but thanks to the band for all the video uploads! Click here to check out dozens of SBD clips, and right here, I'll show you their performance of the song "POW! Right In The Kisser" from their debut concert!
My final video is a third demo clip from new local rockers WinkStinger! Once again, we have a video slideshow featuring a fragment of a new song, this time entitled "(Deeeerp)", which was uploaded onto YouTube user joeyvelcro's channel on Saturday! Sounds good too, more of the punk influenced hardcore I'm coming to expect, though this time, there's a slower jazzier interlude in it too, which is interesting! Hopefully we'll see more from WinkStinger in the near future, maybe a MySpace page or a show? If I hear more, I'll be sure to let you guys know! For now though, check out their newest demo clip!
Finally for today, here's a little goodie of sorts that I recently found on Kewadin Casinos' website! If you highlight "Entertainment" on the navigation bar at the top of the page, one of the choices that pops up is "Concert Pictures", and if you click that, you're taken to a photo page with photos and some related captions and info from various concerts/events at The Dreammakers Theater and outdoors, including Saving Abel, Kenny Rogers, MMA legend Dan Severn, Hoobastank, and Keith Urban (did you know his show had a higher attendance than Kiss?!), along with (for us metalheads) Kiss and Staind! These photos are NOT high resolution at all, but it's cool to see Kewadin recognize their past shows! And though I am NOT a fan of country music, the overhead crowd shot from the Keith Urban show is really cool!
That's not all though! Above the photos, it says "If you attended a meet and greet, view our photo page." Click "photo page", and you will get pictures from meet and greets at Kewadin involving bands who performed at The Dreammakers Theatre! I never even knew they had so many meet and greets, why isn't this plugged on their page more often? Well anyway, there are pictures (still none that are high res) from meet and greets with Brenda Lee, Wynonna Judd, and....Ace Frehley! Yes, he had a meet and greet/photo session with fans prior to his November show, and 13 pictures from it are on that page, including a couple faces that look slightly familiar! Nice to see Kewadin recognize their old shows and performers, they should update these pages with newer and older shows as well! Just plug the meet and greets more and make the pictures bigger! See, if you just explore websites more, who knows what you'll find, like all the band links on the SMS!
That's all for now, I have a pile of assorted news to come tomorrow, along with previews of this weekend's Tym Morrison and Nixxon Dixxon shows, so stay tuned for all of that! Rock on!
