Most of the gigs happening on Saturday, May 10 were related to the Electric Eye Music Festival which featured over 30 bands playing at six different venues all day long. And even better, pretty much all of them were packed, at least for the times I was there.
I caught about a third of the bands at every venue except the all ages g
ig at Blueprint.
I was exhausted from cleaning the highway with CKXU, but caught the soundcheck of local band The Yeah Dads, of whose members Eric Sharp and James Phelen were organizing the festival with the help of dozens of volunteers.
They were playing a feedback drenched set of garage rock at the the Army Navy Air Force veterans club.
I went home for a quick nap but made sure to catch Taber's own the Mangy Mutts, opening up the Slice stage at around 3:30 p.m. They exemplified the DIY theme of the festival.
They played a tight set of energetic country / jug band music powered by a home made washtub bass, a musical washboard and a battered acoustic guitar. They reflected the roots of all three Hank Williams with just a touch of punk energy. There were plenty of songs about drinking and the highlight “Nashville” about modern country music. They played a Corb Lund cover and helped themselves to beer from a home made beer tree set on stage between them.
I would have stayed longer but also wanted to catch a rare local show from the Palmers.
I arrived at the Owl Acoustic Lounge mid-way through their set of more polished soul/ pop and roots music.
Evan Uschenko sang most of the lead vocals and playing guitar. Emma Austin sang background vocals and added extra percussion on a couple of tracks then sang lead on another one to wind down their set. Most of their music was originals though they sang a cover of one of their favourite Edmonton musicians, Michael Rault.
Paul Holden and Clayton Smith added rhythm on bass and drums.
The other band I wanted to catch was Fist City who returned to Lethbridge to play the Army Navy Air Force Veterans Club.
They played their usual set of tight, loud, garage rock featuring the guitar craziness of Evan Van Reekum and the adenoidal vocals of Kier Griffiths. Br
ittany Griffiths and Ryan Grieve held things together on bass and drums.
Over at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, it was time for some all ages weirdness with several computer and electro acts.
I only caught an Ant And An Atom or Sean Warkentin, who hunched over a synthesizer, guitar slug over his back as colourful patterns displayed on the east wall of the gallery.
One of my highlights of the 10 or so bands I caught was the Outlaws of Ravenhurst - an energetic classic metal band playing the Slice dressed as knights.
To go with the outfits, they sang a lot about monks, wizards, dragons and mythical creatures while supplying classic metal riffs along the lines of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. They were off the hook and played some scorching, guitar shredding solos complete with fretboard tapping as the bassist jumped on the floor in front of the stage. The vocals were excellent, also sounding very much like Judas Priest without quite hitting Rob Halford's air raid siren high notes.
After their set I wandered over to Telegraph to catch Shaela Miller and Tyler Bird playing a variety of Miller’s songs and other songs.
They took turn singing lead vocals, Tyler Bird, playing extra guitar, sang a George Strait cover.
Jeremy Floyd Cowpar joined them on stage to help sing one of Shaela Miller’s older, more popular numbers “Vicious Bitches.”
I cut that short to catch another band I really wanted to see — all female Calgary based punk/ garage rock quartet Hag Face who closed off the Owl Acoustic Lounge stage with a late starting set (in part thanks to guitarist Martine Menard frying two guitar amps.
One of the other band’s guitarist worked his way through the throngs of people clustered in front of the stage, trying to get his amp to the stage for them to use.
Hag Face’s lead vocalist and guitarist admitted she was having a diva moment as she asked people to stand up and move all of the tables, not that there was any place to move them with all of the people in the way.
“You aren’t going to want to sit down for this,” she said. She was absolutely right, once they picked up the tempo and finally started paying.
They started their ear splittingly loud, feedback drenched set off slowly then picked up the pace with some hot, scrappy gar
age rock and punk, which sparked a rare mosh pit in front of the stage at the Owl Acoustic Lounge.
I headed back to the Slice because I didn’t want to miss Hypnopilot, but managed to catch the last part of the set of Bonspiel!
Bonspiel! wore their ’70s influences on their sleeves.
Their last two songs featured, big, crunchy bluesy, grunge tinged riffs and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Easy Chair”. They sounded like a mix of the Sheepdogs and Pink Floyd. I couldn’t stay for the whole thing, but was glad I caught as least part of Hypnopilot’s set.
Featuring Garwin Poff of Lethbridge stoner rock band DIRT on drums, they played a bright, tight set of ’70s inspired rock. So there were a lot of huge riffs and incendiary energy.
