Hey Haligoons! It’s me doing a back-to-back review, of great music happening this weekend. If there was one place to celebrate Canada Day in the HRM, it was definitely at Alderney Landing. People showed up in their red & white, to celebrate what our great country has to offer in music, being some of our east coast talent, and musical talent from Newmarket, Ontario. I thought I’d show up, and review the day’s festivities.

The Elwins

First band of the day, The Elwins. I didn’t know who these guys were, and at the last minute was checking out their music online. When they took the stage, I couldn’t help but notice the giant mustache from their bassist, Feurd. I was thinking to myself, “where did they get this guy”?. And Jeff had texted me saying, “dude, I hope you get a photo of that killer stache”. And not just to say that the single band member was a bit of a mismatch, but it seemed that the entire band’s personality looked like they came out of Mister Dress-ups’ tickle trunk. Needless to say, if they were dressed up to play for the kids, they did a great job. They were a lot of fun on stage. Their music had a lot of charm, and it’s something I’d like to go back & listen to online again.

Gloryhound

Gloryhound played a pretty solid set, it was great to hear their new song, “Let You Down Again” in live format. And as usual… they rock! There’s not a whole lot I can say about these guys that I haven’t said before; they come out hard and kick some serious ass. it’s no wonder that these rockers are booked solid.

Paper Lions

Wow, oh wow, where to begin with Paper Lions! For awhile there, they’ve been off my radar, and I’d usually find myself hitting shows where they are featured somewhere on the bill. Now, I’m going to their shows just to specifically see them play live. From their opening track, “Philadelphia”, right straight through their entire set, they sounded excellent. They really knew how to interact with the crowd, and get the audience going. Very impressed!

Before I head into the last band to appear on stage, I just wanted to take note of all the awesome DJing. I really enjoyed the mash-ups they did, even though I don’t listen to whole lot of Pop music, which they seemed to cover. I’m so used to listen to rock music play in between sets, but they sounded really good! Oh yeah, talking about DJs & Pop music, the guys from the band Hello Click! were partying on stage. One of them, like me, were taking photos of the entire show, and I was thinking to myself, “that guy looks familiar!”. Well, the rest of them came out out, and had a blast, throwing mini Canada flags around, and getting the crowd fired up.

Tokyo Police Club

For this year’s headliner, Tokyo Police Club, it was a bit of a mix bag for me, I was expecting more of an upbeat tempo from the band, especially on tracks such as “Nature Of The Experiment” & “Bambi”. Their versions of the songs were much slower than what I’ve been hearing off my Ipod, and believe me, I”m a fan of their recorded material, and I really didn’t quite connect with their energy / presence of stage. Their difference in tempo did however work really well with some of their slower songs including “Tessellate”, which really gave their set a very intimate vibe from the stage, to the crowd. I mean, you could actually see the sparkle in the eyes of their fans, as they were being fullfilled with an indie-rock fantasy moment with the band. Awwwwww. But for me, I just wasn’t into it. Maybe next time guys!

All in all, great concert, great way to celebrate Canada Day, specially with all the bands, and DJs that performed on stage. For what looked pretty “ok” on paper, was actually pretty ****ing good live in person.

Here’s looking forward to Alderney Landing’s next concert, celebrating Natal Day.