I caught about a half of the New Year’s eve gigs with live music.
Most of the New Year’s Eve party folk were at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Dec. 31 for a psychedelic “Punk Rock Prom Night” featuring Calgary band the Devonian Gardens and the Plumy Dads- A mix of the Ruby Plumes and The Yeah Dads who opened up the stage for the masses, most of them dressed in ’80s style prom wear, to come up and sing punk rock karaoke.
I was only able to stay for the Devonian Gardens who always put on a weird and wild show of psychedelic rock that gets weirder and wilder every time I see them.
They played loud, strange, very much acid rock influenced music with keyboards, effects units, guitar harp and even an
actual blue harp set on the left side of the stage.
They had a heap of energy and to add to the psychedelic aura of the evening, a large white sheet hung from the roof behind the band on which spontaneous, colourful art involving a variety of colourful gels, glass bowls and random ’60s images shone through an overhead projector.
Keyboardist/ 12 string guitarist Marie Sulkowski in her big glasses and kimono looked like a ”70s Stevie Nicks and frontman/ guitarist Danny Vescarelli sported a ’70s style hair and moustache as he howled the lyrics and played experimental guitar solos.
Ryan Bourne held down the groove on bass while Jennifer Crighton added extra vocals and added harmonica solos and played the blue harp for a song or two. Drummer Melissa McWilliams was basically hidden behind the billowing sheet, though you could sure hear her.
I always enjoy listening to the Devonian Gardens because they are so odd and they always have a different show.
After their set, I wanted to check out the rest of the action going down in the town, so rang in the New Year at the Slice, where country band Hurtin’ had a decent crowd, though not as many people as I expected.
They had to improvise by their second set as frontman Shael Pezderic was losing his voice, so they brought back founding member papa bear Marlin Pezderic to the stage to play bass and sing some ’70s, ’80s and ’90s era country including “ Eddie Rabbit’s “Driving My Life Away to ring in the new year as well as Confederate Railroad’s “Queen of Memphis.“
Keenan Pezderic, who usually plays bass, was playing acoustic guitar for the show as his brother Shael played lead guitar. Taylor Ackerman stayed on keyboards for the set.
Ryan “Skinny” Dyck’s steel guitar was front and centre throughout and Dustin Gergel held the rhythm together on drums.
I also caught the last part of Fox Eyes’ set of alternative rock at Inferno, where they were playing with several different bands for a good sized crowd.
They sounded excellent. Frontwoman Mandy Fox belted out lyrics and ended their set with a hot cover of Ugly Kid Joes’ ’90s hit “ I Hate Everything About You.”