I expected a full house for Hollerado at Studio, June 24, but there was only about 80 people.
That didn’t bother the band so much as they reminisced about playing Lethbridge a few years ago when the mayor “got trashed and got up on stage and played with us and had the crowd chanting ‘Dodic, Dodic, Dodic.’”
The always cheerful Ottawa based band began with a couple of their most popular hits including “Pick Me Up.”
They played plenty of guitar hooks which were so sweet they could rot your teeth.
Hollerado had a whole lot of energy and a lot of jumping around on stage, especially during their newer more punk/ garage rock influenced songs to appear on an upcoming album. The hot guitar hooks and vocal harmonies of the newer songs made them sound like a heavier Sloan.
They used most of their set to try out a lot of new material, which was awesome and much more rooted in punk and garage rock, though there were a few more influenced by the Clash’s more reggae influenced material. A new catchy rocker I think was called ‘Emily’ about Versteeg’s one month old niece was another new highlight .
The audience really enjoyed the new tracks, which prompted frontman Menno Versteeg to observe how much the band enjoyed playing Lethbridge because the audiences let them play new material.
“Thanks for letting us do this. We can‘t do this in Toronto because there are a lot of jaded assholes there, so we like to come out west and test them on friendly audiences,” Versteeg laughed as he launched the band into “Americanarama,” one of their best known songs, which had the crowd singing along.
They sang gorgeous four part vocal harmonies that could make you weep and which stood out on hits like “ Juliette.” which had the audience clapping along.
They went back a few albums for “Fake Drugs,” another catchy, pop fuelled highlight.
They were called back for a couple of encores including some Blink-182 and recalled former mayor Rajko Dodic ’s jam on stage with them and played “Rocking In The Free World.” which t was one of the songs they had played with him.
Toronto punk band Little Junior opened with an adorably catchy set of pop punk reminiscent of Blink 182 and Green Day. Most of their songs were apparently about “ how shitty we are,” but they played a tight and fun set of enjoyable music. They ended with a cover of Gob’s “ I Hear You Calling.
— By Richard Amery,L.A. Beat Editor
