USS INTERVIEW: Skewering Human Kebab
Based on a true story: After shouting at some kids to get off his lawn, an old man gets into his car one Friday night, turns on Sonic 102.9 FM radio and is pleasantly surprised to hear the familiar strains of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2. But something is terribly, terribly […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Grapes of Wrath returns
It is time, once again, to celebrate the return of yet another 1990s Canadian rock band. They mostly come back 20-something years later, mostly. This time it’s storied Vancouver rock act Grapes Of Wrath, playing Edmonton Thursday night. Their release High Road in 2013 was the first in 22 years featuring the band’s original members […]
OneRepublic to play Edmonton in April
“Everything that kills me makes me feel alive” – has a better ode to modern angst ever been limned? No, it has not. OneRepublic has cut a wide swath through the pop landscape with Counting Stars and other inspirational smash hit singles. Now fans get a chance to see how the Colorado group pulls it […]
Mike McDonald shows character in new music
Anyone who still doubts the close connection between punk rock and folk music need only listen to Mike McDonald’s first solo album, Live at the Blue Chair Cafe. Just don’t call it “Jr. Gone Mild.” While suitable for fireside with acoustic guitar and vocals only, it’s a vivid, sometimes disturbing self-portrait of the famously ornery […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Rock and roll, deja vu
Fleetwood Mac, Motley Crue, now John Fogerty at Rexall Place this Sunday. Hello? Didn’t we just do this? A quick glance at the official record reveals that yes, we did just do this. Those who forget the name of the person who said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat history are … […]
Motley Crue ‘not worthy’ to open for Alice Cooper
If Motley Crue truly plans to retire for good at the end of their 2014 tour, they sure went out with a flash-bang during their nearly two hour set Tuesday night at Rexall Place. The excess of your average ’80s hair metal show was exceeded with such ease – MORE dry ice, MORE pyrotechnics, MORE […]
Foo Fighters bring Sonic Highways to Edmonton
It has been said that the Foo Fighters are the ultimate cover band. They don’t cover songs. They don’t tribute specific bands. They cover entire decades! If this is a complaint (and it was, from the New York Times, no less), it’s a lame one because who wouldn’t want one’s formative decades brought to vivid […]
Colin James comes back to say hello in March
Colin James may be famous for the line where he just came back to say goodbye – but Canada’s blues-rock poster child has never said goodbye even once and he still keeps coming back at least once a year. This time it’s at the Winspear Centre on Monday, March 30, 2015, on tour to support […]
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac plays to its strengths
For a band so relentlessly intent in telling us to forget yesterday – as in their 1977 hit Don’t Stop, Fleetwood Mac sure makes a lot of money keeping the past alive, as evidenced by the full house at Rexall Place Saturday night on their current “On With the Show” Tour. In the years before […]
Street camera gang fights the good fight
“We are out there to fight crime,” says Hugh Lee, co-founder of Hobos With Nikons, a group of Edmonton photography enthusiasts some may mistake for a homeless camera club. “That crime, of course, being people taking bad photographs.” Lee, a Edmonton apartment building manager, talks about the time he gave unsolicited tips to tourists in […]
