September 27th

  

 My ticket stub from the time I saw Lowest Of The Low with openers Jr. Gone Wild play the Needle Vinyl Tavern here in Edmonton. A great double bill of two awesome Canadian bands.

September 13th

 

The time I saw Lowest Of The Low play The Rev in Edmonton on September 13th, 2002.

May 3rd

 

 On May 3rd, 1994 I went to the second night of back to back shows by Toronto band Lowest Of The Low at Peoples Pub in Edmonton. Lowest Of The Low were on tour for their album Hallucigenia. Opening the show was another Toronto band called Sour Landslide. two great bands for two dollars. Them were the days!!!!

May 2nd

  

 On May 2nd, 1994 I saw Lowest Of The Low play Peoples Pub in Edmonton. Opening the show was another Toronto band called Sour Landslide who were awesome as well. The price was right for this show too!

Lowest of the Low Live in Edmonton Sept.27th 2017

Last Wednesday my buddy Buzzard and I went to the Lowest of the Low concert here in Edmonton at the Needle Vinyl Tavern. I was excited about this show for several reasons, for starters I have always been a big fan of LOTL since their debut album Shakespeare My Butt that was released in 1991, and they haven't played Edmonton since 2002. Not only that but local rockers Jr.Gone Wild would be opening the show. Talk about a great double bill of two awesome Canadian bands. There was also another local band on the bill called Short Of Able.

The evening started with Edmonton band Short Of Able. I had never heard of the band before but thought they were actually alright. Apparently they have been around since 2011, but have just recently ramped things up again with more gigs and a record released last year. Kind of an indie pop rock style of music. I thought they did pretty good actually.

Next up was Jr.Gone Wild. This would be my tenth time seeing them play in concert, a band that never lets me down. Their hour long set was filled with lots of new music. I believe there was eight new songs in total and five of which I had never heard before. The newer songs that I hadn't heard before were (hope I got song titles right) "Girl In The Crowd", "Five Million Songs", "Dodge", "Mars" and "What Can You Do". All the songs sounded great with the classic JGW sound. One of the songs, I can't recall which one was the song that the band stole some of the lyrics from Chi Pig of SNFU (Dodge maybe). As lead singer Mike McDonald went on to say it was a little pay back for SNFU stealing some of his lyrics many years ago. Another new song they did called "Warren's Van", a song they have played a few times before was an absolute rocker. The band really seemed to speed this one up from the last time I saw it performed. Of course the band also played some of their older stuff as well. A great show by Jr.Gone Wild and looked like the crowd was enjoying their set, even the new songs, with people dancing and singing along to the older stuff.

I had the chance to talk to lead singer Ron Hawkins of Lowest of the Low a bit at the show and he had mentioned that JGW was a big influence on the band and especially the debut album of theirs Shakespeare My Butt. Ron said this was a double bill that had been 25 years in the making. The guys from LOTL were out amongst the crowd watching Jr.Gone Wild's set.

Jr.Gone Wild at The Needle.

Headliner of the evening was Toronto band Lowest of the Low. It was nice to see the band finally make it out west, they have been doing shows out east in the Toronto and Buffalo area off and on for a few years now. But now they were out this way and with a new album "Do The Right Now" under their belts. Their first new album in thirteen years, which is damn good by the way.

Lowest of the Low opened the show with the song "Powerlines" from the new album, also played from the album were "Gerona Train", The title song "Do The Right Now" and "Something To Believe In" all the new songs went over very well, but nothing like the response songs from the Shakespeare My Butt got. And they played a great selection of songs from that album. That album Shakespeare has been voted as one of the best Canadian albums recorded over the past 30 years. When Ron Hawkins and the band tore into those songs the crowd was singing along word for word. Songs like "Kinda The Lonely One", "Letter From Bilbao" "Salesman, Cheats and Liars", "So Long Bernie", "Just About The Only Blues", "Henry Needs A New Pair Of Shoes" and more ending their set with "Rosy & Grey" from said album. I was also very impressed with Lawrence Nichols all the harmonica, he was wailing all night. There were even a few songs from the album Hallucigenia. Ron Hawkins was in good form too as was the rest of the band. An awesome night of music by three great Canadian bands. Good times!!!

Lowest of the Low at The Needle.

T-shirt.

Ron Hawkins Live In Edmonton April 1st 2016

On Friday I was back at the Almanac for another show and this time it was for Ron Hawkins, whom is best known for being the lead singer and songwriter of the very under rated 90's band Lowest Of The Low. I have seen Lowest Of The Low three times previous but the first time I have seen him solo, or more like duo actually, as Ron had another guitar player with him by the name of Brian MacMillan. Being a big fan of LOTL I was really looking forward to this show, as I haven't seen him perform since 2002.

Opening the evening was Ego The Jackal aka musician Connor McGowan who is originally from Ireland but now calls Edmonton home. I had never heard of him before this show, but after looking in to him. He use to be the frontman for the Derry, Northern Ireland rock band Skruff.

Ego The Jackal his newest project is Connor playing solo and playing a folk style of music. His 40 minute set was quite good, as he his a great finger picking guitar player and his voice was very soulful at times reminding me of Ben Harper a bit. He also did a great version of the Springsteen song "Dancing In The Dark". What bothered me during his set and actually this happened through out the night, was all the chitter chattering going on. This also happened at the Plume show last weekend and at another show I was at a few weeks ago. The artist is performing which requires listening, shut the fuck up people. If you don't like the artist or music, have some respect and go outside and talk, or better yet, go to your local watering hole and talk away. But if you have come to a live music venue, do everyone a favour and shut up!!! Overall Ego The Jackal set was pretty good.

Ego The Jackal at The Almanac.

Now it was time for Ron Hawkins and Brian MacMillan to do their thing. By this time the venue was a little over half full. I really thought there would be a better turnout for this Friday evening show. For those that didn't make it, you missed an awesome show. But again, who all knew about the show, as there was no posters or advertising for this show.

I was excited about hearing Ron do some Lowest Of The Low songs, especially tunes from the first LOTL album "Shakespeare My Butt", but Ron is on the road touring for his latest solo album "Spit Sputter and Sparkle", so wasn't too sure how much he would play. As Ron has done a lot of music with not only LOTL, different projects such as his solo stuff, Ron Hawkins and the Rusty Nails and the Do Good Assassins. I'll be honest and have to admit, I haven't heard much of his other stuff. Well Ron certainly didn't disappoint, he played music from all his bands, but did a lot of his early LOTL tunes. His two hour show just flew by with one great song after another, quite a bit from Shakespeare, such as "Eternal Fatalist", "Salesmen, Cheats And Liars", "Bleed A Little While Tonight", "Rosy And Grey" that song had the biggest and loudest sing-a-long of the evening with everyone singing the verse...
"Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain
And I've kissed you in places I'd better not name
And I've seen the sun go down on Sacre Coeur
But I like it much better going down on you
Ah, you know that's true"
That was a classic live music experience. Ron even took a request playing the song "For The Hand Of Magdelena". This was an awesome night of music, other then the people talking through out the show. Good times!!!

Ron Hawkins at The Almanac.

Setlist for Ron Hawkins.

Lowest Of The Low have reunited a few times for shows out east, here is hoping that they make their way out west to play some shows, maybe the Interstellar Rodeo.

I had the opportunity to have a brief chat with Ron after the show. I showed him a couple of ticket stubs I had from the LOTL shows I saw in 1994. He was kind enough to autograph them for me.

Throwback Thursday...The Lowest Of The Low

A couple of posters from times I have seen this great Canadian band The Lowest Of The Low play.

11 Years Ago Today...September 13th

It was eleven years ago today that I saw Lowest Of The Low play Edmonton at The Rev.

19 Years Ago Today...May 3rd

It was nineteen years ago today that I saw Lowest Of The Low play at Peoples Pub here in Edmonton.





Also on this day sixteen years ago I saw KISS play in Calgary at the Saddledome.





As well, it was fourteen years ago today that I saw Motorhead play at a bar in Edmonton called Cowboys, of all places.

19 Years Ago Today...May 2nd

It was nineteen years ago today that I saw Lowest Of The Low play at Peoples Pub here in Edmonton.





Also on this day sixteen years ago today I saw KISS play at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.





Looks like May 2nd has been a good day for shows, as I saw Violent Femmes with Hawksley Workman play Edmonton thirteen years ago today at the Shaw Conference Centre.





In concert news...KISS will be playing Edmonton this summer on Friday July 12th at Rexall Place.