Thrush Hermit Live in Edmonton October 11th 2019

My buddy Buzzard and I went to the Thrush Hermit concert at the Starlite Room a few weeks ago. Thrush Hermit is a band from Halifax, Nova Scotia formed back in 1992 by Joel Plaskett. Thrush Hermit released to two full length albums Sweet Homewrecker and Clayton Park and a handful of EP's. Sadly the band disbanded in 1999 not long after the release of Clayton Park. I never did get to see Thrush Hermit in concert, but with the release of the 20th anniversary edition Clayton Park on vinyl, the band reformed and toured across Canada. I was very happy to get the Clayton Park album on vinyl on Record Store Day, then not long after when the band announced the cross country tour, now I was super stoked to finally get to see these guys perform live.

When I heard about the show I asked my buddy if he wanted to go see Joel Plaskett's old band in concert. With Buzzard being a big fan of Joel Plaskett as well, he was in. He didn't realize until the night of the show that Joel Plaskett was actually in the band and would be playing. He thought I had meant just seeing his old back up band.

What a fucking show this was, in my top shows of the year for sure. Thrush Hermit which is Joel Plaskett on guitar and vocals, Rob Benvie on guitar and vocals, Cliff Gibb on drums and Ian McGettigan on bass and vocals hit the stage with Ian balancing his three string bass on his nose (wish I had got a picture of that) and off they went into playing the Clayton Park album in it's entirety with the old neon Rock & Roll sign lit up behind them. Joel started the first song just on vocals, which was funny to see as Joel has always got the guitar strapped on. The band was incredibly tight with some cool jams thrown into the songs, they were certainly firing on all cylinders. This was the 11th show of their 14 date tour and man were they rocking. I would love to have been able to see this show a few more times. After playing all of Clayton Park they did some older songs "North Dakota", "On The Sneak" and "Strange To Be Involved" from Sweet Homewrecker. Plus a couple of songs "French Inhale" and "Patriot" from their EP's Smart Bomb and The Great Pacific Ocean. That was an hour and a half all out rock n' roll. It was awesome to see Joel ripping it up on the electric guitar again. The last couple of times I've seen him in concert they have been solo acoustic shows. An incredible show!!!

Thrush Hermit at the Starlite Room.

Opening the show was Shotgun Jimmie from Brandon, Manitoba. Jimmie is a one man show playing guitar, drum and vocals. His songs come across as personal and quirky. His set was pretty good but I was so excited about seeing Thrush Hermit that I had a hard time getting into his music.

Shotgun Jimmie at the Starlite Room.

Real Sickies Live in Edmonton October 5th 2019

A few weeks ago my buddy Buzzard and I went to the Real Sickies show at the Temple. I was surprised Buzzard wanted to come to this show as it was a punk show, and that's not up his alley at all, but he took the chance and came along.

The show was headlined by Edmonton's Real Sickies, with the rest of the line-up also being Edmonton bands.

The first band of the night was Chairman, I had never heard of them before, but was there in time to catch all the bands. Chairman weren't my kind of music but did have to laugh when near the end of their set the lead singer left the stage briefly and then came out dressed in a Santa Claus outfit carrying a black garbage bag. That was when he started to throw hands full of cigarettes (Rothmans) into the audience, by my guess I would say he threw a couple hundred smokes out. At first I had no idea what he was throwing then quickly realized they were smokes. Needless to say all the smokers in the audience got to smoke for free for the night. Can't say I've ever seen that at a show before.

Chairman.

Next was Jazz Cigarette which is a three piece band consisting of Cody on bass, Tyler on guitar and Eric on drums. I recognized the drummer Eric from the band Languid in which he is the lead singer, but in this band he is the drummer, a damn good one at that too. I really enjoyed their set, a mix of Motorhead spirited music with some jamming involved. Songs titles like "Black Leather Hell", "Blasting Tunes On Weed", and "Black Out Drunk With Satan" gives you an idea of what kind of band they are. They really got the crowd going. I would certainly go see these guys again for sure.

Jazz Cigarette.

Next up was Chips Ov Oi, an Edmonton punk band that sing mostly about cookies and pogoing. They have a couple of albums out with titles like Make Pogo Great Again and Oh No! Ogopogo!. I had heard of this band before and was looking forward to checking them out. They didn't disappoint, short two minute Oi punk songs with titles like "Turnin' Trix (For Chocolate Chips)", "Smash A Cookie (In Your Beer)", "Punk Drunk Oi!", "Oh No! Ogopogo", "Pogo I'm In Love" and "Chocolate Chips (Not Fish and Chips)". So you get the idea of what their songs are about, cookies, pogo and Oi. They were a very fun band to see and had the crowd pogoing and slam dancing and singing along. They obviously have a great following in the city as the venue got a little fuller and the audience were singing along and having a great time. I enjoyed their set and will be looking to pick up their album.

Chips Ov Oi.

Headlining the night was the Real Sickies playing a homecoming record release party. The band had just returned from a cross country tour promoting their new album Out Of Space released on Stomp Records. By the time they hit the stage the Temple was quite full and everyone had a good buzz on by then. This would be my fifth time seeing the Real Sickies in concert, and they just keep getting better each time. Led by Ben Disaster on vocals, the man can sing and has so much energy up there on stage. Their music could be summed up as old school punk a lot like the Ramones and Teenage Head.

This time around Real Sickies had a keyboard player playing with them, I believe this was the first time he had played live with the band. he had recorded with them but not played in a live setting. He sounded great, not overwhelming. The band played a lot of the new album, which in my opinion is even better then their first album Get well Soon. Some of the songs I recognized were the title song "Out Of Space", "Not A Lifer" which had the rowdy crowd singing along, "Got Me Running", "It Came From Above", "Something Good" and many more. All and all a fun night of punk rock music, not too sure my buddy Buzzard enjoyed himself but he stuck it out. Good times!!!

Real Sickies.

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Elton John Live in Edmonton Sept.27th 2019

It's been more then a couple of weeks already since Janis and I went to the Elton John Farewell Yellow Brick Road show at Rogers Place. This was the first of a two night stand with both shows being sold out. I had never seen Sir Elton John in concert before, so this show was a bucket list one, but after seeing prices for tickets, I didn't think I would be going. The price was unreasonable in my opinion, 200 dollars for tickets in the boonies. I had said I wouldn't pay over 200 bucks. That and the show sold out ridiculously quick, both shows. I kept my eyes on Ticketmaster for months watching for seats. By the time Friday rolled around, the first night of his two shows, I didn't think I was going to get to see Elton in concert. Well two hours before show time, lo and behold I checked the site again and managed to score two tickets for the show at $87.00 each, they weren't the greatest seats but we were in, and that's what mattered. Now when I saw the seats, 4th row in the upper deck I thought that's not too bad. But I forgot at the new arena fourth row in the upper deck (side stage view) is actually way up there, with the two tiers of club seats between lower and upper deck, fourth row is up there. Not like the old Coliseum where row four in the blues were actually pretty decent seats. Nonetheless, we were going!

Elton John and his band which consisted of long time members Davey Johnstone on guitar and backing vocals, Nigel Olsson on drums, Ray Cooper on percussion, John Mahon on percussion and vocals who has been with Elton since 1997, Kim Bullard on keyboards since 2009 and Matt Bissonette on bass since 2012 opened with "Bennie And The Jets" and man did they sound good. Elton sounded great on vocals and wow I never realized how good he really is on piano. While our seats were a side stage view, we couldn't see the back of the stage which is where the screen was, that was kind of a bummer, but at least we could see the band and the sound was pretty good from where we were. The two and a half hour show was one hit after another, songs like "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues", "Tiny Dancer", "Rocket Man", "Levon", "Candle In The Wind" and "Daniel". From where we were sitting you could really see the people in the floor seating dancing and having a blast.

At one point during the show Sir Elton went on to explain his reason for the Farewell Tour mentioning spending more time with family, and thanking his fans for all the support, he came across as very sincere. He got a huge round of applause after his speech.

The last third of the show we moved down to the main concourse and managed to find a place to stand and watch the rest of the show where we could see the whole stage and the screen and such. And we were able to dance to the remaining songs like "The Bitch Is Back", "Crocodile Rock", "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" and then for the encore "Your Song" and to end the show "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". So that was fun to be able to dance and have fun, because there is no way you are standing or dancing in the higher bowl of the arena, it's so damn steep up there and the aisles are so crunched it's hard to move at all, never mind dance. We had an absolute blast at this show and am very happy that we managed to get tickets at a decent price. Good times!!!

Elton John at Rogers Place.

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