The big show I was waiting for was the return of the Mason Rack band, who played to approximate 30 people at the Slice, Aug. 5. I can see why frontman
Mason Rack describes his music as blues rock on steroids.
But he also showed he knows how to draw a crowd into the show with nothing more than the power of his voice and superb command of dynamics.
The quiescent crowd sat enraptured as lead singer/ guitarist Mason Rack started things off with a hypnotic groove and rhythm he laid down by tapping on the side of his delay-laden Weissenborn lap steel guitar. He was lost in the moment as the crack band got lost in the groove, interrupted only by looking up as one fan’s cell phone rang and commenting “that had better be an important call,” before getting lost in his music again.
He played some more slower numbers including a menacing version of “Crawling King Snake,” which he kicked off with an evil chortle as he switched guitars. Rack showed he could play with supreme taste and capture the crowd on the edge of every note, as well as he could tear thing sup with ear-bleeding blues rock, which he did on “Seen her B4,” a crowd favourite.
His band, bassist Nathan Archer and drummer Joel Purkess were no less impressive in their respective solo spots.
Archer added some warm distortion to make his bass sound a little like a keyboard. He played the bass with his teeth and writhed as he danced in place.
Purkess’ drum solo was beautifully thunderous yet melodic. They all got to show their chops and multi-instrumental prowess, as they did “the old switcheroo,” with Purkess grabbing the bass, Archer taking the guitar and Rack getting behind the drum kit mid song to amp up the volume and triple the tempo.
I loved their new material, particularly the sultry, jazzy “Hard Goodbye” which he wrote “about a time I had when I was drinking,” which had some inspirational lyrical moments like the Beatnikesque “I’ve always been a genius at digging my own grave.
I could get a job and pay off all this bad debt, buy a house with a yard, have 
pool parties and buy you that German Shepherd. I have dreams, they aren’t all wet,” which he delivered in his deadpan Tom Waits style gravelly drawl.
One of the highlights of his show was the three man percussion solo which began with the band keeping the beat while Rack wandered into the crowd with three drumsticks, banging on a Mason Rack embossed beer keg, as well as chairs, tables, the brick pillar in the middle of the room and anything else handy.
The rest of them joined him by bringing a drum into the middle of the crowd and tossed drumsticks sticks to each other, pounding on everything in sight while not missing a beat.
From what I heard of the second set, it was a lot more slower blues, a couple rockabilly and ’60s grooves with some heavier and louder ones thrown in like “Beast.”
They were called back for an encore of “Flip, Flop and Fly” and wound things down with “Take You Home,” from the new Cd “Limits of Grip,” where much of the show came from.
