The safety dance

There's a bunch of great shows coming up in Ottawa in the next few weeks - unfortunately I won't be there for them because my work schedule is neatly circumnavigating them all. I got the Gaga Weekend off, and now I must suffer for it. That was part of the reason that sent me off to Mavericks last night. Another was that I have a new camera, a Nikon D90, and wanted to test its capabilities. The third reason was that despite my lukewarm reaction to In-Flight Safety's performance at Bluesfest last year, they've attracted a lot of plaudits of late. Matthew Pollesel at i(heart)music, for one, praised their latest album We Are An Empire, My Dear? effusively. And even if they were dull, openers Acres are guaranteed to entertain.

Acres have just returned from a recording venture in a lodge, and previewed a bunch of material from their next CD and possible LP.


Acres, Mavericks, June 18, 2009

In-Flight Safety also sounded excellent, and favoured the crowd with a chugging version of Midnight Oil's Beds Are Burning. They were a melodic powerhouse throughout their set.


In-Flight Safety, Mavericks, June 18, 2009

Best of all, the new camera worked like a charm. It may not be obvious from these reduced sized versions (they're five feet across normally), but my Nikon's autofocus is miles sharper than the one on my Olympus - what a difference three years in technology makes!

• Show reminder: Great Lake Swimmers and Timber Timbre perform at the First Baptist Church; Rise Against, Rancid and Riverboat Gamblers (now there's a band I really want to see live) rock the Ottawa Civic Centre; Misery Signals, Dead and Divine and Sights and Sounds play Babylon (early); BA Johnston, Stolen Minks and The Allrights entertain at Irene's; Joe Taylor performs for a second night at Zaphod's; The Tony D Band are at The Rainbow; Lonesome Paul is at the Elmdale House.