Vancouver based indie rock band Yukon Blonde made a triumphant return to Lethbridge  to play a busy  Average Joes on  Thursday night, Feb. 11.
 Long before they began, they had a lot of their fans, mostly, young female fans, clustered  in front of the stage eagerly anticipating the band’s first visit to Lethbridge in many years.
 I thought they would focus on their new, keyboard heavy CD “On Blonde,”  but  only played the singles “Saturday Night” and “ I Wanna Be Your Man.”

 They sound like a lot of indie rock bands coming out of  Vancouver with plenty of delay laden guitars and a overall soothing sound.
 But they brought something a little extra — tight songwriting with catchy guitars, a touch of alt country along the lines of the Jayhawks and stunning multi-part (four or five part sometimes) vocal harmonies which reminded me of Sloan.
 They played songs from all their CD  form the very early like “Wind Blows” to the brand new, like the latest singles.
 They had the audience singing along a lot.

“Wind Blows ” was  a highlight as was “Fire” from their 2011 EP “Fire/Water” for which frontman Jeffrey Innes did double duty on keyboards and guitar. Rebecca Gray played most of the keyboards in the set, but they took a backseat to tight songcraft and the chiming guitars.
Innes’ keyboards took centre stage for the new singles.

“All right, now let’s play a rock show,” he quipped after playing “Saturday Night.”
He was good as his word as he launched into “ Radio,” from their 2012 CD “Tiger Talk”  which had the audience singing along. He told a story about playing Lethbridge last time and having to relocate the show to a house concert due to a downpour.
Lead guitarist Brandon Scott sang a couple of songs and sang harmony as he thrashed around.

Bassist James Younger  told a story about being kicked out of Progress Clothing for “making fun ” of the clothes when he just wanting to buy some, and laughed he was welcomed back earlier in the day as a customer. That drew rousing cheers from the crowd.

Innes noted they had one last song, their latest single “ I Wanna Be Your Man,” which had a lot of folks singing along. That lead to a handful of more songs including a couple David Bowie hits “Let’s Dance,” and my favourite Bowie rocker “Suffragette City,” which ended the show.

Opening act On an On played a plodding set of mellow, ambient indie rock that sounded like Radiohead and Coldplay spending the winter in On an On’s home of Minneapolis.

 There was some pretty cool dissonant bass chords and effects, chill vocals, lots of keyboards. Frontman/ guitarist Ryne Estwing and bassist Nate Eisland took turns singing falsetto. Keyboardist  Alissa Ricci crouched down for a drink and to tinker with an assortment of effects units attached to her keyboards. They picked up  the pace in places as the crowd politely applauded, stronger each time.
They were tight and good at their style of music, unfortunately they were putting me to sleep a little.

Red Deer country trio ’Ol Boots and The Hoots added their own string to traditional country music for the Lethbridge Folk Club at the Lethbridge College Cave, Feb. 6.
 I caught most of their second set, which was a “hoot.”

 There was plenty of self-deprecating humour, and lots of country.

Frontman Boots Graham was full of jokes and music. He talked about quitting his punk band to play country music, his first hitchhiking experience and being forced to sings trucking songs with a truck driver. He was pretty well versed in cuntry music history, naming obscure songwriters of  some  big hits he played.

Sean Vandenbrink and Matt O’Connor who supplied thumping upright based and a touch of western swing fiddle playing.
 They played a variety of traditional country songs including revamping George Jones/ the Big Bopper’s hit “White Lightning,” as well as an excellent version of folk/ blues standard “Frankie and Johnny.” A highlight  was “Kansas City” as well as a laid back version of Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues.” They even put their own twist on Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” to wind down the show.

His quirky originals were the best part of the second set. There were  several songs about drinking  and a highlight about ex girlfriends as well as another highlight  “Dirty Rotten Coffee Blues” about coffee. All of them were accompanied by hilarious stories and earthy jokes.

It is always great to see Vancouver accordion powered klezmer punk Geoff Berner, especially when he has almost a full house to see him as he did, Feb. 5.
 He was backed by drummer Wayne Adams and violinist Diona Davies (aka DD), who added a hauntingly beautiful string to Berner’s exotic sound.

 I missed the first few songs of his set including “ Swing a Chicken Three Times Over Your Head,“ one of the outstanding tracks from his latest CD “We Are Going to Bremen to be Musicians.”
 I did arrive in time for anarchic crowd favourite  “Daloy Polizei (Fuck The Police,) which had the crowd shouting along with the chorus.

 Berner always entertains with his ironic, witty and self deprecating sarcastic stage banter, but each line he sings has six inches of sharpened steel sticking out of it.  Especially on political/ historical songs like “Maginot Line” which he played in the first set. All that and you can dance to his music — most of it anyway.

“Let’s see you get up and dance, otherwise the show is lost. It’ll make you feel better,” he quipped at one point. He had the floor full of dancers for  some of his more upbeat songs, but had them listening intently to the slower ones.

He played original music and rejigged Jewish folk songs, basically bringing forth an evening that made the audience simultaneously laugh, think and dance.

He played several tracks from the new CD including the highlight “When DD Gets Her Donkey,” which showed off DD’s subtle prowess on the fiddle and a lot of songs about drinking  and dancing in addition to nice balance of more serious fare.

He dug back into his vast back catalogue for his second set, opening with another crowd favourite “The Clown and Bard.”

 He also featured another highlight from the new CD “I Don’t Feel So Mad at God When I See You in Your Summer Dress.”
  This was the set that had a good part of the room on their feet.

 He went even further into his back catalogue for another highlight “Can’t Stay Dry.”

 I wanted to hear two of my favourites “Condos” and “We All Gotta be A Prostitute Some Time” but may have missed them.

A more subdued, acoustic Trews  return to Lethbridge, Feb. 24 to play the Southminster United Church for the Geomatic Attic.

“We like to do an acoustic tour at the tail end of every album cycle. It’s a tradition we really enjoy. It’s nice to change gears and focus on a different side of the band with the vocal harmonies and acoustic instruments,’” said  the Trews singer songwriter Colin MacDonald, who forms the core of the band with his brother John-Angus MacDonald and bassist Jack Syperek.

The Trews have several hits on the radio including  “Poor Broken Hearted Me,” “I’ll Find Someone Who Will,” “Hope and Ruin,” “One By One,” and “Not Ready to Go.”
The Nova Scotia born, Toronto based rock band are joined by multi-instrumentalist Jeff Heisolt and new drummer Gavin Maguire who took  over behind the kit when Sean Dalton stepped down in July.

“We’re just continuing on with that tradition. And I like playing nice theatres all over. We usually play bars and bigger clubs, which is great, but there are a lot of nice theatres to play too,” he said.
“It’s still upbeat beer drinking music,” he said.
 In anticipation of the upcoming acoustic tour which begins with several dates Stateside, they re-released their 2009 acoustic album “Friends and Total Strangers” with four previously unreleased tracks.