Unfortunately had to head to Victoria BC for a funeral this past week. Not the best reason to check out another part of our wonderful country Canada. Victoria has a population of about 80,017 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 344,615, the 15th most populous Canadian metro region. Its a great place to visit. My first night in the city I was out at a concert. Given its population Victoria doesn't get every musician coming through but they do get a few. I had picked up their weekly entertainment guide called Monday Magazine. Ironically it comes out on Wednesday. Noted the Reverend Horton Heat were in concert. My friend Paul is a huge fan and given that I had never seen the band I thought this would be a good opportunity. I located the venue on the city map provided by the hotel and headed out to see what Victoria night life was all about.
The concert was being held at Club 9One9, under the Strathcona Hotel. A downstairs basement concert/club venue with a very cool silver dance floor sunken in front of the the stage in a very odd cavernous dingy dark club. The bill also included The Real Mackenzies and the The Spittin' Cobras.
The first band was the Spittin Cobras from Seattle who were definately some rock and roll dudes who tried to engage the crowd early. The lead singer jumped into the crowd a couple of times to try to drag people to the dancefloor just in front of the stage.
The second band were The Real Mackenzies, a bunch of kilt wearing guys punk rockers from Vancouver who have nine albums to their name (who would have known) and even rock the bagpipes.
It was about 11:00 PM when the band hit the stage and the crowd was quite into the band. I had two people chat with me during the break. Surprisingly, this is about 2 more people/strangers that have ever chatted with me at concerts in Toronto. Victoria may be a friendlier place. Or maybe it was all the alcohol flowing that night in the bar.
Funny that on a Thursday in Toronto, the concert would be pretty well have ended by midnight if not earlier. Not in Victoria. Reverend Horton Heat took to the stage and played almost up to 2:00 PM. He started by running through a track from each album he has released starting with Psychobilly Freakout off the first album Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em. Half way through the show he had a guest guitarist from George Thorogood's band join him on stage. George Thorogood was also in concert that night in Victoria and the guitarist had made his way over to the show. All in all a great concert, great venue, and a great night out.
This is what the twitter crowd said:
@cpudan: Going to see these guys tonight with The Reverend Horton HEAT!... I think it's going to be a party :) (taking a... http://vsb.li/y4WdDV
@CLUB9ONE9: Reverend Horton Heat tonight @CLUB9ONE9 !!! Doors open at 9pm.
@cpudan I'm at CLUB9one9 for Reverend Horton Heat and The Real McKenzies (Victoria, BC) http://4sq.com/LchdLU
@abc4: i was tenderized in the pit @ the real mackenzies / @revhortonheat show in #yyj so sore so happy
Check out the opening part of the show thanks to a Youtuber:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPkBYqdvzf0
No comments:
Post a Comment