Searching for Satellites, Odium, Torch Black Sky, Dancing With Paris, Farewell to Freeway
Vinyl, Guelph
$7 (adv.); $10 (door)
All Ages
-read about each band under the cut!-
NOTE: Searching for Satellites are not covered in this review. You can, however, read about their performance in London on January 15th!
Photo: Katie Maz Photography
Odium
Walkerton, Ontario
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Walkerton, Ontario
The second band to take the stage, Odium, was the most traditionally ‘metal’ band of the evening. Odium’s music was constantly heavy and constantly low, both in their vocals and the music they were playing. Although they lacked much musical diversity between one song and another, the band was still able to attract a reasonable crowd, for a second band of the evening, and was worth the watch.
Photo: Katie Maz Photography
Torch Black Sky
In addition to being less heavy then their predecessor, Torch Black Sky were also more diverse musically. The crowd that gathered for the band’s set followed the age-old (though often not the case) rule that as the music improves, the crowd thickens. Indeed, as well as playing music slightly more diverse than Odium, Torch Black Sky was also far more adventurous with their guitar parts. The greatest flaw in Torch Black Sky’s set though was that for their first few songs their vocals were just slightly off-beat. The difference was enough that it was hard to notice, but once noticed was impossible to ignore. The problem disappeared with time, however, and by the end it was a solid set.
Photo: Katie Maz Photography
Dancing With Paris
This was my third time seeing Dancing With Paris, though my first in such a large venue, and they pulled it off well. (What’s smaller than Vinyl, you ask? Guelph’s basement venue, The Shadow.) Dancing With Paris were the best of the evening’s opening bands, offering a more diverse array of songs than the bands before them. The band was also one that alternated between screams and clean vocals, rather than just constant growls.
In terms of the crowd, Dancing With Paris was the first of the bands who were able to wake them up. When singer James Manning taunted the crowd by comparing them to the audience of a golf tournament, Guelph rose to the challenge, and from the next song onwards, a mosh pit took up the front of the venue. Guelph even proved their ‘mosh pit abilities’ during Dancing With Paris’ final song: when told to throw down one last time, a mosh pit, even more chaotic than before, erupted.
Photo: Katie Maz Photography
Farewell to Freeway
This was Farewell to Freeway’s first show in Guelph in a year and a half, and it was clear that their city missed them. In fact, it seemed as if the fact that the point of the concert was to launch their new album, Filthy Habits, was just icing on the cake for those in attendance.
While it is often common, when launching a new album, to play the new release from front to back, that was not the case for Farewell to Freeway. Though the setlist was weighted more towards their new songs, the band also played some of their old classics. The crowd favourite of these older songs was Portrait, which the band played as a closer, right before they were called back onstage by shouting fans.
In addition to playing old songs, the band also thanked their two old members for coming out to the show that night, ex-drummer Richie Gregor, and ex-keyboardist Michele Walter.
In fact better than their musically impressive set was Farewell to Freeway’s ability to incorporate the old with the new. New songs and old, new members while the old watched.
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