Another Great Concert

Last Sunday, a friend of mine invited a group of people, including myself, to watch a concert by "Hey Rosetta." To be honest, I have never heard of them before, but I'm pretty much always up for going out with friends for live music.

The band is from Newfoundland, and as a typical Torontonian, I made the mistake of assuming that we would be hearing maritimer folk music. Well ... I am an idiot. Instead, I got to see one of the best live Rock n' Roll shows that I have ever seen.

The show was at the "Pawn Shop," a bar/club on Whyte Avenue. The "Pawn Shop" is equipped with a dance floor which was packed with about 75-100 people, whenever there was a band on stage. I was actually surprised at how busy the place was considering it was a Sunday night, and the headlining act didn't actually start until abou 11:30pm. Admittedly, university students had the next day off, but this is still Edmonton, and I find most places close really early on Sundays in this city.

I'm not exactly a music critic, but I knows what I likes, and I likes this. They used a variety of instruments on top of the standard drum, guitar, bass, and vocal setup - including the prominent use of the violin. Again, I can't really ask for more from a concert than hearing great music, seeing the band enjoying themselves up on stage, and having most of the bar rocking out with them.

Due to my lack of tact, I had a nice little moment when I went up to the merchandise table near the end of the "Hey Rosetta" set. I was hoping to beat the lineup which was clearly going to build as soon as they were done playing, so I sneaked up near the end of their set. The table was still close enough to the stage and dance floor that I could still see what was going on. What I didn't realize at the time was that each band was selling their own merchandise, and so I would have to wait until after "Hey Rosetta" was done in order to get a CD.

Anyways, I foolishly go up to the two guys sitting at the table and am told that I have to wait. At this point I recognize the two as members of "Two Hours in Traffic," a solid pop rock band from PEI. Me, being the super-smooth guy that I am, went with the following response:

"Oh ... Sorry about that ... yeah ... Anyways, nice set guys ... ummmm .. real good job ... yeah, that was great ... thanks anyways." I then scurried away as quickly as possible. Yup, accidentally implying that I'd rather spend my money on another band right to the face of a few musicians (of which I actually enjoyed) - all in a day's work for me.

After a Long Hiatus, Some Live Music

On Saturday, a friend and I went to the Starlite Room in Edmonton for an Oxfam benefit concert headlining Eamon McGrath and the Wild Dogs. I met Eamon several months ago through Matt, a good friend of mine in Toronto. Eamon was performing a live set at the York University radio station CHRY and as the musical director of the station, Matt invited me along to videotape the performance.

Unlike the CHRY set which consisted of Eamon alone with a mic and an acoustic guitar, the Starlite Room concert involved a full band playing a punk show. In this setting, Eamon and the Wild Dogs just throw themselves into the performance and pretty much completely let go on stage. These guys appear to absolutely love playing live, and the joy they exude is simply infectious. Between Eamon charging into the crowd to dance and sing, and the rest of the band going wild on stage, I was completely in awe of the amount of energy these guys played with.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was particularly interesting to recognize some of the songs from the acoustic set. While the lyricism may be harder to appreciate in the punk show, I loved being able to hear such a completely different interpretation of the songs, particularly "Badlands", a personal favourite of mine.

One of the opening acts, Sam Hate and the Jackals also had a very impressive sound. I'm not sure how to describe it - let's go with hard rockabilly - but I was quite entertained. Of note, the bassist was adding an extra layer of percussion by somehow slamming the strings against the neck of his double bass while playing. At least this is the way he described it to us at the end of the show, but something might have been lost in translation due to the ringing in my ears.

Here is part of the video I filmed from the CHRY set, although I have to give credit to Matt for putting things together and editing the footage. Admittedly, the film is all washed out (that is my fault, not Matt's), but I think you will enjoy it.