How much fun was the Linsmore Tavern Thursday Night? Well I can only allude to the idea of having three incredibly fun bands and that the house was packed with hungry spectators waiting to see the return of Turbo Street Funk. But before we go there, let me tell you about the other two bands first.
The first band to hit the legendary stage was a young band by the name Blumarelo. They quickly warmed up the crowd with their delightful and enjoyable energy. Their pop sensibility definitely had an almost tropical warm feeling. I think it was the loud shirts that they were wearing. As their set progressed, I learned they were also from different parts of South America. Hence the tropical feel to the music flowing from the stage. Their enthusiastic bounciness even brought on a couple of dancers to add to the sunny crowd. There was nothing outrageous about this band, as I am noticing in our music scene today. A lot of today’s bands do a lot of screaming.Their charm comes from just wanting their audience to have fun. I really enjoyed the song-“Dramatic”, because it did portray a slight edginess to their safe frolicking sound. If you ever need a feel good night this is a band you can both chill out to and get up and cut a rug too. I look forward to seeing what they do next in the up and coming year.
Here are some images of Blumarelo:
Hailing all the way from Parkdale, came a band called The Muddy York Blues Machine. They had to travel all the way from the west end, where they swore the crowd over there was very friendly too. I have seen shows in Parkdale, they are friendly. They opened with a classic 70’s tune- “Love the one your with”. They even told us most of their songs are about love. It doesn’t get much friendlier than that. When they began to go into some of their original material, I laughed because I caught their lyrics and they included the famed Parkdale bar The Rhino in that song. Another great original was a song about the Devil, not so much a love song, but they all can’t be about love. There are a couple things I really enjoyed about this band. The first and most obvious was the female lead singer, Veronica McNamee, whose strong vocal style has recognizable tints that you couldn’t help but really enjoy. I am talking about hints of Janis Joplin, Ann Wilson and even Amanda Marshall. If you enjoy these voices, you are already halfway to enjoying this band. The other part that was beautiful for me was that the original songs they did had a true early 1970’s vibe to it. If you didn’t know better you would be wracking your brain trying to figure out what band back in the day did those songs. I love the authenticity of that distinctive style. They finished off the evening with a tip of the hat; an homage to our favourite Torotonian Jeff Healey and did “See the Light”. This is also a very young band and I can’t wait to see what they do next.
Here are some images of The Muddy York Blues Machine:
Lastly, and the reason we were here was to see the return of one of the great horned bands of Toronto, Turbo Street Funk. These guys started off their careers as buskers around downtown Toronto. They got on stage and went straight into a medly of the White Stripes and the Eurythmics. This band has a wonderfully balanced way of doing cover songs and original material. I was very fond of their song “Momentum”. It seemed very appropriate since they are seriously taking on this journey to be a full time band entertaining us. It is what they do best. The other stand out tune was a song called, “Never been to New Orleans”. Man did they nail the essence of that song. They had us dancing and laughing and smiling. As we neared the end, the singer share a great story about how they used to do a Toronto Favourite, “Spadina Bus”, when Richard Underhill(The dude who wrote the song), supported their version and even began a relationship with them by introducing people to them to help out in their career. Well this is the chance for Toronto to pick up the pieces and show some love towards this band. They are fun, entertaining and they want our fair city to enjoy them for years to come. With some more momentum they will flourish. The Linsmore Tavern had enough people to get the ball rolling. Now it is up to you to make sure it keeps on rolling as it bounces down our funky streets.
Here are some images of Turbo Street Funk: