A sold out crowd at the Slice, Thursday, Aug. 1 was in the mood to party with Ottawa’s Loon Choir and Fernie stoke folk favourites Shred Kelly.
The two bands were happy to oblige.
Loon Choir made an impression immediately with an appealing strongly ’80s influenced indie rock sound featuring lots of keyboards, percussion, catchy guitar and freewheeling energy.
Keyboardist/ percussionist Nicole Yates and Derek Atkinson traded lead vocals. Yates’ vocals, harmonies and stage presence made them an ideal fit for a bill with Shred Kelly. They are playing 10 shows with Shred Kelly.
A song about ‘making friends’ was extremely apt for their first Lethbridge visit as they definitely made a lot of new friends.
They blended a lot of sounds, giving them an Arcade Fire/ Metric feel. The two keyboards added a lot of ’80s pop while Atkinsons’ vocals were reminiscent of Wax Mannequin.
A spoken word piece was a highlight of their set as was “Almost Golden,” which they said was going to be their last song, but the crowd called for more.
‘Spiral’ was another highlight.
Shred Kelly was in top form and kicked off a loud, boisterous, long and sweaty set with “New Black,” from their new CD “In The Woods”
Half the crowd were on their feet within the first couple bars of the song, most of the rest of them joined them by the end of the song.
The intensity continued with “Cabin Fever,” and they took off from there.
Banjo player Tim Newton beamed from ear to ear, while keyboardist/ vocalist Sage McBride looked blissed out as usual. There was a plenty of amazing banjo playing and an unstoppable beat which kept all those feet moving and butts bouncing.
Crowd favourite and usual set ender “I Hate Work” came midway through the set and had most of the room singing along as did “Ghost Inside My Head.” They also added a couple of new songs into the set as well as all of their two CDs.
Newton played fast paced ukulele for a couple near the end of the set. The applause by the ended of the set pretty much drowned out the band, who were happy to play an encore.
