It’s Thursday night at The Hard Luck Bar, located at 772a Dundas St West. Inside four new bands will be trying out their chops to begin building an audience. This is the kind of place where you will find hopeful Indy bands practicing to create their stage craft.
The first band up is Big Lonely from Burlington Ontario. I asked them after the set, why Big Lonely? As it turns out one of the band members love to ski at Mount St Louis/Moonstone, and his favourite run is called Big Lonely. Well the start off with kind of a swing country song, that leads into a more modern sock bop tune. They go for the straight forward pop song and a howlin’ rocker. They tried some new material on us, but since this is the first time I am seeing them, it’s all new to me. I am just soaking it in. Then they go into a song with a myriad of different tempos and ideas. I just realized these guys have a wide breadth of imagination and creativity. They finish off with The Beatles,”Oh Darling”, and do the this screecher with confidence.
Next up is Crown Lands, a band who’s EP, I recently reviewed. Look back a few pages to read it. They start of confident with their opening track, “Being Right”. For a two piece band, they come off with a heavy explosive attitude. The Drummer/singer, Cody, handles his parts with strength and agility, while Kevin the guitarist, swing his long hair around like a rockin’ Samson. They play some new material that they are working on and it sounds fantastic. It is a little bit more melodic, but juicy enough to make you salivate for the next recording. They were very appreciative to the other three band as well as their family members coming to the show, all the way from Ottawa. I found out, they were in town for a wedding as well,HaHa…
The Kerouacs , from Niagara Falls, were up next and played very pensive music. Maybe they were borrowing ideas from the poet Jack Kerouac. The second song caught my ear, because it sounded like the hit song from the movie, “Still Crazy”, Strange Fruit’s hit, “The flame still burns”. Once they got to the fourth song, you would think these guys very pensive musicians, but they really rocked it out. They did a medley of two songs, Tears for fears-Everybody wants to rule the world and Fleetwood mac’s-Dreams. They finished their set with a song called Matterhorn, an epic piece of music that feels like they are trying to scale a mountain.
Lastly come the headliners, Ballroom Babies. They come screaming in through the gates with what feels like a great 70’s rocker! They keep the fire burning with a scorching song that has the lead singer straining his vocal chords to impress the gathering. They hit a great groove with their third song-“Spaceman” and by the forth song they hit you with a solid chemistry between the Bass player and Guitarist. There are some small victories being met, because I can hear elements of Led Zeppelin and Rush, as well as a little Cream. Their new material is slated for the future, and it is heavy and hard. This band is not going to apologize for it either. They are truly not babies and you will not find them in your favourite ballroom anytime soon.
To learn more about these up and coming bands go to;
http://biglonely.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ballroombabies.com/
To see The Hard Luck Bar schedule go to- https://www.facebook.com/HardLuckBar/
View images from the performances below: