Roberta Bondar’s Tape Release at Café Alt
Roberta Bondar brought their dark noise rock to Café Alt Friday March 22, for their tape release party .
Yes I said tape, as in cassette. If you have never seen Roberta Bondar, you are missing out on some of the best dark garage rock in town. Roberta Bondar, not to be confused with Canada’s first female astronaut, played powerful songs with flares of danceyness and pristine moments of organized chaos. Lidija Rozitis has an amazingly chilling voice that pairs so well with the sound the band pumps out. They blasted through a set full of great songs in front of a packed house, including one of my favourites, STD.
At the end of the set Lidija invited everyone to, “come party at the jail with The Yips, that is where we are going!”
Before Roberta Bondar, the crowd was treated to a no-holds-barred noisy rocking set by Hamilton’s WTCHS. Stopping only to take a sip of beer, this foursome let their music do the talking. Great rock and very tight transitions teamed up with eery backing vocals and driving drums make WTCHS a must see. Call me sexist or chauvinist if you must, but there is something about a female drummer that makes me weak in the knees, and she sure can whale. If you like non-stop no bs loud rock, check out this band.
Opening up the night was Couples, from Montreal. Their set started off with some slower tracks, but by their third song it was clear that they were only going to get better as they went on. As per the theme of the night, they played straight forward no filler garage rocking tunes. Lead singer, Adam Fiore, thanked the crowd for showing up for their early set. “If this was Montreal no one would be here, so thanks for coming out early.”
Café Alt has a great artsy feel to it with stained glass hanging in front of the overhead lighting and rocks with pieces of glass on them hanging from the ceiling deflecting light. They have a psychedelic colours and images playing on some projection screens and top it all off with $3.50 Kichesippi beers.
I just wanted to give a little shout out to whomever was playing the music between bands, great choices!
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