The big show of the night, Feb. 26, was at the ‘ghost bar’ beneath the Travelodge on Mayor Magrath. The event, featuring numerous bands from Ghostwood Records attracted 179 people and raised close to $1,000 for the YWCA.
This beautiful room has sat vacant for almost 10 years and still looks like a ’90s dance club, but numerous Ghostwood Records bands brought the place back to life with a variety of different musical styles.
Local rock band the Living Luca started off the show by playing a lot of old favourites. The introduced a brand new, more funk fueled originals. Lead singer Bridgette Yarwood displayed her impressive pipes and, as always, was a delight to watch on stage.
Stellar Radio Choir was up next with a more upbeat garage rock set that was rock solid. The trio sang a couple bars acapella to begin their second song, then grabbed instruments and rocked it. They invited fellow Eastern B.C band Shred Kelly up on stage to help sing a couple numbers.
I unfortunately missed the Necessities set as I wanted to catch the United Steelworkers of Montreal at the Slice, but arrived back in time for a pleasant surprise — Smokestack Jacks’ first show with their new bassist Michael Kaye.
He added even more energy and a classic rock feel to the already upbeat local blues rockers and fit right in like he’d been playing their crowd favourites like “Fat Ass,” “Rocket Ship” and others with them for years instead of weeks.
Sleeping With Tuesday also showed stylistic variety with a variety of music ranging from rock to reggae and even a touch of country. They laid down a solid groove, had a good sized crowd dancing and ended by inviting everybody on stage to sing their punk version of the Ghostbusters theme.
Fernie’s Shred Kelly ended the night with an energetic set for of uptempo banjo playing, some ukulele, a little keyboard an a lot of energy which kept the crowd on their feet and displayed some impressive bluegrass/ folk/ country picking with a touch of punk tinged drums.
Throw in some crazy mandolin picking and you’d have the D- Rangers except with some beautiful female vocals from Sage McBride.They took a couple requests and gleefully played them. Shred Kelly then welcomed Stellar Radio Choir back to the stage to add some harmonica and some upbeat vocal melodies for a couple of numbers to end the show.