Saturday night I made a rare trip to Irene's. It still hosts a bunch of great shows, but I find the place is usually full by the time I drag my lazy self down there. Patrick Shanks was kind enough to put me on the guest list, so I knew there'd be a place in what was obviously going to be a sold out show by local legends The Stand GT, The Sir John A. MacDonalds and Gruesomes offshot Fuad & The Feztones.
As it happened, there was a sickness in the MacDonalds, so Patrick played a solo set, including some new J-Macs material.
There was also an a capella encore of his
Wake And Bake tribute to pot-smoking and bicycyling.
On to The Stand GT. They reformed for a set at Ottawa Explosion 2014, which I missed due to the schooling and giant-pepper-mill making. Thus, while Chris Page has appeared (solo and with Camp Radio) a bunch of times, as has Colin Majid (with Garaga and others), this is actually the band's first appearance. Here's some rhythm section action with Colin and Wally!
Doug frets!
Chris sings!
Pickin' action!
Standing action!
Doug sings!
Colin sings!
Bonus Wally!
More Chris!
The whole blurry, fisheyed lot!
Less blurry action!
Fuad & The Feztones take their stylings from early '60s frat rock and such outfits as Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs. If they had been around then, they'd be on a Norton record now. First, some saxophonic action!
Banner action!
Bassist Rich N. Ready introduces the man himself!
Chugging action with Fuad Ramses (a.k.a. Bobby Beaton)!
Thumbs up action!
Backup vocal action!
Fuad sings!
Rich sings!
More saxophone!
Fraternal action!
Keyboard action!
Gruesome twosome action!
Of course, they finished off with
Louie Louie.
