Whoop Up Days opened with the blues and a throwback to southern rock courtesy of Winnipeg’s Joey Landreth and the Sheepdogs. he show drew a sizeable crowd, but not as many as I expected.
Saskatoon’s Sheepdogs sounded like the bastard children of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Black Crowes.
Their set featured
most of their excellent new CD “Changing Colours.”
They opened with their best known hit “Who Do You Belong To?” and followed it up with “I’ve Got A Hole Where My Heart Should be” from the new CD.
They played a laid back, but super tight set showcasing impressive vocal harmonies, which were just as impressive double and sometimes triple guitar harmonies.
They have since welcomed aboard guitar prodigy Jimmy Bowskill who was unrecognizable in a pale blue suit, cowboy hat and moustache, but played impressively restrained blues solos and even steel guitar for a couple of songs during a live a version of the medley if songs on the new CD including ‘the Bailieboro Turnaround. They let him loose on a couple of songs , but for the most part, he played beautifully succinct solos.
“Another earlier song ““ The Way It Is” was a highlight, as was the slower blues of “Bad Lieutenant.”
They slowly built up the momentum which culminated on a big, long jam on “Cool Down,” and “Kiss the Brass Ring” from the new CD which sounded like a long lost Supertramp song.
The multi-talented Shamus Currie stepped out from behind the keyboards to play trombone on a couple of songs and added a third guitar on another new song “Let it roll.”
His brother Ewan sang lead vocals and added plenty of catchy, ’70s style guitar riffs.
they wound down a hot set with “Nobody” from the new Cd and another well known hit “ I Don“t Know.” They were called back for an encore of the Allman Brothers Band’s “Rambling Man.”
The Joey Landreth trio opened the show by playing a hot set of original blues rock music focusing on some gorgeous slide guitar and an amazing guitar tone which really sounded like blues icon Sonny Landreth, who is not related to the Winnipeg Landreths. Joey Landreth usually plays with big brother David in the Bros. Landreth, but comes into his own with his trio with a sound that sounded like it should come from the deep south instead of the depths of Winnipeg. Vocally he was reminiscent of Delbert mcClinton and Lyle Lovett. The mix of the two is to die for.
Whoop Up-Days featured a saloon on site this year. While The Sheepdogs were rocking out, Trevor Panczak was playing a sedate acoustic set of some of his new songs including his latest single “Cheap Shades,” and some of his favourite country classics.
