I always enjoy hearing new bands. So I made a point of checking out the Left Behinds— a folk/ rock trio featuring guitarist/ vocalists Greg Wilson, Kathryn Smith and drummer Ryan Reese. They have played the Slice open mics before, but their opening slot for Jesse and the Dandelions and Vancouver’s Yes Nice and Jesse and the Dandelions, Aug. 22 at the Slice was their first official gig.

The group who are usually on stage acting, proved to be adept musicians.

 Wilson played some nice guitar on a hot set of upbeat Shins style indie rock influenced originals as well as a few covers from bands like the Decemberists.

They had a lot of fans in the packed house, who hung onto every word they sang as Wilson and Smith harmonized beautifully. Smith also played lead guitar on a couple numbers.

Vancouver area band Yes Nice was another band I wanted to see. I was pleased to catch most of their energetic set.
 They are aptly named. Yes, they had nice violin playing from Erin James who stayed in the background, nice vocal harmonies, some really nice song arrangements and played a nice, tight set of heavily 80s influenced original music .

A lot of their catchy pop music sounded like it would make  a nice soundtrack to a Japanese Anime movie.

 Lead singer and multi-instrumentalist Nathanial Wong owned the stage, alternately crooning, joking with the crowd, and switching between guitar, keyboard and even drums for one song. Jillian McKellar sang behind the keyboards. and guitarist Darren Frank officially ended the band’s show by singing lead on their  big song “Horses,” which beautifully showed off their vocal harmonies. They were called back for an encore.