An enthusiastic audience enjoyed an upbeat set of bluegrass inspired music from Calgary’s Rotary Park, July 15 stopping by the Owl Acoustic Lounge on the first date of their new tour en route to South Country Fair.
I last saw Rotary Park at the Lethbridge Folk Club in February.
Since then they’ve released their second CD “Be” so they decided to focus on the new music from that.
The band (Alex Ginella - Vocals/Guitar/Fiddle/Harmonica Colton Daigle - Vocals/Mandolin/Percussion Liam Testa - Vocals/Guitar Matt Coldwell - Vocals/Double Bass Tanner Day - Vocals/Banjo) switched instruments in between songs and sometimes in the middle of a song. They had superb vocal harmonies and undeniable musicianship.
They incorporated elements of jazz, folk, progressive rock and of course bluegrass. So I want to coin a new term to describe them— prog-grass as they combined a lot of those elements into experimental progressive rock including turning Pink Floyd's “Time” into a bluegrass song which allowed all of the band members to play tasteful solos. They also covered an old Irish song.
They noted “they were tired of playing ‘Wagon Wheel’ and ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ for corporate gigs during Stampede , so they were glad to play original music from their new CD “Be.”
“Saskatchewan” was an early highlight which set the tone for the night as it gave everybody a chance to solo. Some of the many highlights included “Canis Lupus,” and “Good Bye Baby Blues” and a couple songs about drinking. Each of the songs had different time signature changes, and different elements from country to ’50s doo wop music.
