Whether he’s singing in English, Spanish or gibberish, Vancouver musician Petunia must be seen to appreciated.
The Vancouver based musician brought his band, the Vipers, to the Slice, Sunday to perform for approximately 30 people.
He was last here on St. Patrick’s Day for about 50. But no matter what kind of mood he is in or what sort of music he feels like playing, he is always entertaining.
He has an inimitable yodelling voice and a band that can’t be matched including lead guitarist Stephen Nikleva who was at home playing jazz, country, Caribbean/ Cuban music, blues, rock and roll, rockabilly and even Romanian music, upright bassist Joseph Lubinsky and dynamic drummer Paul Townsend.
I arrived in time for his second set and found he was in a Caribbean/ Cuban jazz kind of mood.
And just when I was expecting to hear steel drums, drummer Paul Townsend created a reasonable facsimile of them by wandering out from behind his kit and rat a tat tatting with his drumsticks on the strings of guitarist Stephen Nikleva while Nikleva sipped at his drink.
I didn’t recognize a lot of Petunia’s new songs but he also performed an excellent version of “Six Days on The Road.”
He stepped aside for drummer Paul Townsend to bash out an impressive jazz fuelled drum solo and watched Nikleva play some just 
as impressive Romanian music on guitar.
They wound things down on more of a rockabilly note on “I Don’t Get It.”
