May 3 2015 – Canadian Music Week and it’s new expanded schedule promises musical riches for those that search for it. Aside from the various genres on display during the 10 days of the festival there are always possibilities of hit and miss bands. Perhaps they are simply not talented enough or charismatic enough to dominate a stage. Our quest for the next hidden gem of #RealRock continues. We have discovered bands such as One Bad Son, TimeGiant, Bella Clava, Stone River, In My Coma and countless others in the past Canadian Music Week events in Toronto. Tonight we decided to set up base at The Dakota Tavern (a first for us as we usually run from venue to venue) and soak up whatever was on offer. Here is how it went down.
9 PM – Ten Minute Detour
So. You think you can put in a bit of Led Zeppelin in your set? You really have the balls to take on the holy grail of #RealRock? Well Ten Minute Detour mashed up Good Times, Bat Times to close out their set with a major exclamation mark that left us on our asses. The band had a great vibe with an incredible vocal/guitar interplay. Their style often had epic Zeppelin style build ups in a great garage blues style. They have blistering guitars with a nice clean and polished sound. For us CMW is about discovering great new bands and any band that has us referencing Led Zeppelin twice in a paragraph is a big win. Ten Minute Detour wins our GIG OF THE NIGHT mention for CMW May 2 2015 and have landed solidly on our radar. Calgary has produced two of our favorite bands, namely Open AIR and Frankie McQueen and now Ten Minute Detour make it a solid 3 for 3 out of Calgary.
10 PM – Thicker Than Thieves
This dance pop duo is so far away from the musical style we focus on T-Mak World it almost doesn’t seem right for us to provide any commentary. The fans that were there to see them were enjoying and many girls were dancing along with the band so they certainly got their audience going. They are included in our video below.
11 PM – Alert The Medic
Here is a band that we know very well. Alert The Medic were on our Top 10 Indie Bands list all the way back in 2012 and we have reviewed many of their shows very favourably. They have big time vocals and instrument skills. They have a polished sound that varies from ballads to hard rockers. Alert The Medic never disappoints and they delivered yet another kick ass set (just like every other time we saw them). They are pure energy personified with real rock smarts.
12 AM – Them Dang Rattlers
Are they a little bit of Country with Rock in it or are they a little bit of Rock with Country in it? Not sure which one – but why bother trying to figure it out – just go with the flow and a have a good old time. These 6 dudes with mandatory beards came hard with major enthusiasm and they were obviously ready to party the whole night. Of all the bands we saw tonight they easily had the most raw energy.
1 AM – The Red Rails
Finally! After 2 days of seeing a ton of bands we get long hair. This is the look that seems to have disappeared from many bands at CMW and we have found a correlation between hair length and how good the band sounds in a #RealRock sound! Joking aside The Red Rails delivered an onslaught of riffs and bass and drums foundations that is exactly what we want to hear. We mentioned Led Zeppelin before and we notice that the drummer of the band Steve Brogno had all four holy symbols tattooed on his leg and he delivered some kick ass powerful drumming. Kim Vincent took on vox and guitar duties and transcended when he closed his eyes to the glory days of the 70’s. Great set from a great band and one that we will be watching again as this is exactly the type of music we love.
Well that was an interesting night with a bit of variety to make a memorable Saturday night at Canadian Music Week. We will take a couple of days off as the music calendar is a bit slow until Tuesday so we leave you with a video of the night below with 30 seconds from each band we saw. Enjoy!
