Ottawa Explosion Day 3: Needles//Pins, Nervosas, Wyldlife, Thee Nodes and Voicemail at Saw Gallery
For Day three I once again returned to the stage outside of Saw Gallery for great shows by a bunch of bands.
Needles//Pins from Vancouver, British Columbia were awesome. The singer’s raspy voice teamed up with the trio’s energy makes for great sets. The set did not go off without a hitch though. As they began playing ”Green Eyes,” the guitarist broke a string. Davey Quesnell (Pregnancy Scares and Steve Adamyk Band) jumped to the rescue on got them a new one. Meanwhile the bass player encouraged everyone to ”Drink for a bit we will do this as fast as we can.” Songs like ”Best friend” and ”Pulse” are what Needles//Pins are all about. Great rocking songs with catchy choruses. It was very cool to see The Mandates by the stage singing along to every word. Needles//Pins play Saturday at 6:30 at Vertigo Records.
Columbus, Ohio’s Nervosas started their set by asking ”Hey Ottawa, are the local animals around? You know, the guys from the New Swears, we really want to hit their ramp.” Their distorted straight forward punk rock was excellent. I really liked the track they closed with, called ”Poison.”
Giving us a dose of old school New York style garage-punk rock with a modern edge was Wyldlife from New York City. These guys showed up to rock! Love the intensity and the lyrics of ”Sonofabitch,” and really got into the song ”Saturday Night” with the counting chorus and the clapping. The crowd was into them and they could feel it, the lead singer said ”Ottawa, you are making Toronto look bad, and that is a good thing.” They closed with ”Sidewalk Queen” and then gave out hotel info inviting people to come party later.
Thee Nodes from Montreal were complete insanity. Lead singer came out with his head mummified in toilet paper and wearing a suit. As the band set up he asked ”Are you ready to rock? That’s nice I want to cry.” The lead singer reminded me of Smeagle from the Lord of the Rings, very creepy and crazy. He constantly threw himself into the crowd and on the ground. At one point he was hanging upside down from the tent. So much energy and so much sorrow, a great example was their opening track ”Living Like a Corpse.” Quite the spectacle.
Kicking off the day was a band that formed last year at Ottawa Explosion, Ottawa’s own Voicemail. This is the second time I see these guys and really like what they are up to. Songs like ”Everybody Wants to Dance” and the rocking ”Riot,” are just so good live.
I left before Holy Cobra took to the stage to head over to St. Alban’s Church for more great music. You can check out that write up right here.
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