People bellyache about this city. But what city doesn’t have it’s issues. But by lord tundering Jebus do we have a great music scene. It was no more evident than at Bigwood 10, Friday, Aug. 3. And this was only the tip of a thriving iceberg of a scene.

 I was on stage in the Tempest, so missed the first few acts, HoverKraft, Taylor Ackerman’s Global Acid Reset and John Wort Hannam, but was just in time to hear a set of roots rocking crowd pleasers from Dave McCann and the Firehearts, featuring David Bauer on lead guitar, drummer Kyle Harmon and new bassist Shawn Worden who worked their way through a set of old favourites including  “Unfamiliar Ground,”Road to Cain,” my favourite “Fireheart,” and “Beautiful Road.”

They also played a brand new song “Snakebit,” before returning to older material including “Broken Bugs and “Standing in the river.”

Shaela Miller, sporting a purple jumpsuit,  and her band including lead guitarist Jon Martin, bassist Paul Holden, Tyler Bird on drums and background vocals played a set of mostly songs from her latest CD “Bad Ideas,” including “Hard knock upside the head.” Ryan Dyck was missing on steel guitar as he was  home looking after their son.

 Shaela Miller improves every time I see her, so it is always a pleasure to watch her and hear her beautiful warbling. She has gained a lot of confidence on stage.
 Though she just release “Bad Ideas,” she also played several brand new songs to appear on her next album. But she also delved back into her back catalogue for crowd favourites like “Vicious bitches. and “Half Way in Love.”

The main event of the night was Leeroy Stagger and his hot band who have been busy touring, so it was great to see Stagger and the Rebeltone Sound knock it out of the park at Bigwood 10.

 The hot band including a stellar line up of bassist Tyson Maiko, guitarist Kyle Riley,  a keyboardist whose name I missed, multi-instrumentalist Ryland Moranz and all star drummer Pete Thomas who used to play with Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

 The tight band played an upbeat rocking set focusing on cuts from his latest album “Love Versus,” including the single “ I Want it All,” and “Run Rabbit Run” and newer material.

Moranz jumped between guitar, banjo and mandolin throughout the set. Leeroy Stagger chatted with the crowd abut touring and interviewing Bruce Cockburn for his CKUA radio show The Dirty Windshields radio hour and asking him  if love was enough to save us, then referenced a DOA patch on an old punk in London”s jacket reading “Talk-Action=0”

 Perhaps as a tip of the hat to Thomas, they ended  their set with a spirited version of Elvis Costello’s 1979 hit cover of Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.”

Host band the Dirti Speshuls, took the stage around midnight, focusing on brand new catchy ’90s style power pop songs from their upcoming new album. I had  to be up early to go to Calgary in the morning, so had to leave about four songs into their set and missed closing band Adequate.