As usual the Rotary Dragon Boat Races provided a variety of music. I only caught a few of the acts while volunteering. I arrived at the Henderson lake Park, Saturday, July 6 in time to see another hot set by teenaged rock/ pop band The Juarez band. As usual they sang catchy vocal harmonies and traded lead vocals among themselves.
The Hibikiya drummers played a thunderous set on the wooded dance floor after that as a variety of their drum beats resonated and thundered through the park.
After an extended break, Alyssa McQuaid took the stage, guitar in hand and played some of the highlights off her three CDs.
She dedicated a sweet song for her dad’s birthday, her cover of the traditional spiritual “ The Water is Wide.” She also sung popular country covers like “Stuck on You,” and “Better Dig Too.” As usual she ended with her sweet cover os “Sweet Child O Mine.”
Unzipped turned this s up next with “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and a variety of hard rock and metal hits including Poison’s “Nothing but a Good Time,” as well as some Rolling Stones.
They also amped up a cover of the Beatles’ “ Twist And Shout,” a hot cover of “Rocking In The Free World” and even some more modern rock in “Stacy’s Mom.”
Bridgette Yarwood and Jason Eveleigh turned thing down for their set of acoustic folk and jazz music.
They played several of Yarwood’s originals and some smooth, jazz fuelled covers like Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”. She ended with a cover of Adele’s “ Rolling in the Deep.”
The Raw Dogs were a definite highlight of Saturday at the Dragon Boats as they covered all of the bases — amping up covers of country like “ Ain‘t Going Down Until the Sun Comes Up.”
They covered everything from Sam Roberts to Poison’s ”Talk Dirty To Me.”
While there was a,or of music on Sunday at the Dragon Boat Races, I only caught the closing set from Paul Kype and Texas Flood.
As usual they played hot blues and southern rock as well as one of guitarist Greg Gomola’s songs from Zojo Black.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor