A good crowd came out to see local roots and country band Rancho Deluxe at the Slice for Boxing Day.
Unfortunately I missed Shaela Miller and Ryan Dyck’s opening set.
As always Rancho Deluxe had a solid line up of
Ryan Dyck on steel guitar, bassist Paul Holden, drummer Brad Brouwer and Tyler Bird playing lead guitar playing with frontman George Arsene.
They played an eclectic couple sets of music including a lot of originals and covers of lesser known roots and country musicians. Among the highlights was a cover of Ian Tyson’s MC Horses as well as Calgary songwriter Tom Phillips’ “ Sing like an Angel.”.
Throughout, Tyler Bird, still sporting a leg cast, sat in the shadows behind Ryan Dyck, playing beautifully tasteful solos.
Arsene croaked impassioned lyrics of his own and others and strummed rhythm and the band played tightly.
They covered obscure Rolling Stones and ’90s alt country like Son Volt and Jay Farrar as well as some lesser known Steve Earle and Calgary cowboy singer Tom Phillips.
Their second set started off with more old school country, featuring Tyler Bird on fiddle. They began with some Bob Wills, which they followed with the exceptional original “Hard Cards.”
he followed that up with an old Nitty Gritty Dirt band song “Cosmic Cowboy.”
