The Electric Eye Music Festival kicked off with a big, loud , boisterous injection of liquid metal, Wednesday, May 11 as Striker, The Outlaws of Ravenhurst and Lustre Creme plus the Rainbow Patrol took over the Slice.
They had an impressive crowd for a Wednesday night with everyone eager for a head-banging, hair shaking good time.
Though the show started late, most of the audience hung out until almost 2 for the end of Edmonton metalheads Striker’s hot set.
“This song is what we’re all about,” shouted frontman Dan Cleary as he introduced “ Full Speed Ahead.”
They immediately showed why they have rabidly enthusiastic audiences all over the world all over the world.
They proved that no matter how many sound alike pop stars invade the airwaves, no matter how many one hit wonder trends happen, metal will never, ever die under any circumstances. The spirit of Iron Maiden was strong in Striker.
They continue to carry the standard high for hair metal, British metal and any other kind of melodic metal you can name because they were all about harmonized guitars, air raid siren vocals, huge riffs, anthemic choruses and gang vocals. With musicianship to kill for, in short Striker are all about having a good time. And about time too. A band that is unabashedly about celebrating life is far and few between.
They had a mosh pit started by the middle of their set and by the end had them shouting along with “ Fight for Your Rights, fight for your freedom. They were called back for a killer encore — a request for “Terrorisor.”
And they were oh, so very, tight and an easy frontrunner for best metal show of the year in Lethbridge. And we got to see them in a small club rather than on a huge stage or arena, where they will likely be in a few years. They made an auspicious debut here, hopefully they will come back.
You may remember Calgary’s Outlaws of Ravenhurst as the band who played Love and Records in Galt Gardens to the tune of a sword fight, which went well with the knight image they portray.
This time there was no sword fighting, just a whole lot of classic, epic sounding metal, lots of orchestration, especially considering there were only three of them , some fretboard tapping and a tight set.
As usual they were dressed in their red and white dressed knight’s outfits.
As usual they sang about dragons, jesters and epic battles. They had a classic metal feel with galloping bass and touch of classical inflection.
An expanded Lustre Creame was before them, playing a set of all new music and introducing their new guitarist Ethan Lentz. Other than being in their new video a couple of weeks ago, I had never seen the four piece Lustre Creame, so I was glad the show started late even though I still missed an opening set by Rainbow Patrol, who got a shout out from all of the other bands..
Lustre Creame were in fine form, playing epic length songs full of psychedelic riffs and solos. I was pleased to see them back doing the psychedelic progressive rock thing they do so well. There were going through a detuned grunge thing not too long ago.
Lentz added extra thunder to the band’s sound as he provided a solid foundation for the band to build upon, allowing lead guitarist Aaron Trozzo to experiment more and Geoff Orriss to sit back and groove on bass. As always Chris Lipinski was unstoppable on drums.
They started off slowly, building up the intensity with bursts of big riffs and wah wah drenched solos for that extra touch of psychedelia.
The Electric Eye continues tonight with several venues featuring music.
Attainable Records— Electric Eye: 7:30 p.m. The Silkstones, 8:30 The Fox Who Slept the Day Away 9:30 Participation $15
10:45 Lab Coast midnight Devonian Gardens
Blueprint Electric Eye— 7 p.m. Loïc Zev 8 p.m. Crack Cloud
Owl Acoustic Lounge — 9 p.m. Curtis Windover 10 p.m. Painted Fruit 11:15 Johnny de Courcy $15