Ottawa Explosion Day 4: New Swears were quite the spectacle at SAW
With the rain pouring down it was a nice day for a white wedding with the New Swears!
Ottawa’s party boys all dressed in white garbage bags, started the show with Davey Quesnell (Pregnancy Scares/Steve Adamyk Band) dressed as a priest. He asked ”Audience will you take the New Swears as your band? News Swears will you take the audience as your fans? You may now kiss the band!”
Once the formalities were done it was time to get some beer, and they opened with ”See You in Hull,” which starts with ”didn’t make it to the beer store, so see you in Hull!” As they started rocking our faces off, inflatable animals and palm trees, confetti, silly string, rings, play money and more was launched into the crowd. Quite the spectacle!
The crowd was crowd surfing, moshing and all around rowdy the entire set. New Swears played with great energy and made a mess of everything. They separated the crowd for a wall of death, and then played the passive and slow jam ”Paradise.” They closed out the set with ”Rather be Dead” and then walked off away from the madness.
On day four I saw a lot of great acts at Saw Gallery. Teenanger from Toronto played before New Swears. Teenanger, have this sort of old school hardcore feel to them. The drummer was rocking a really nasty shiner on his right eye and the band played a great set. I really like the song ”Surveillance” and the anthemic ”Conflict of Interest.” The lead singer said ”it has been nice seeing so many friends at Explosion, it has been a Broverdose.” And I can’t not mention that they played ”Gnar” which is about amazonian psychedelic shrooms. They closed with the lead singer saying ”New swear up next, let’s get drunk!”
A band called Hollywood played in place of The Kidnappers from Hansburg, Germany. Hollywood was some great fun rock. The crowd loved the addition, as they were dancing and singing along. I really enjoyed the song ”Cold Ones.”
Sugar Stems, from Milwaukee, brought their very fun pop rock to Ottawa. Their light and upbeat music was a nice change of pace. I really liked the combination of voices, with female and male vocals who are very different from each other. I dug their new single ”Like I Do,” it is great and I recommend it.
I was lucky enough to see Chit Chat in at a private and intimate show at Vertigo Records the day before. They were excellent once again. The Ann Arbor rockers delivered a really rocking rendition of ”Will Never Know,” which is quickly becoming my favourite track of theirs along with ”Attitude.”
Ottawa’s very own Street Meat where not what I expected. Reading their name on the schedule I imagined a bunch of scruffy looking dudes, you know meat from the street. Instead it was two lovely ladies on vox, a drummer and an iPod. The whole set was dedicated the drummer’s daughter, who was front row and center and danced the the entire time. ”Sex Pose” and ”Lady Porn” did the trick for me. Check them out when they play around town, they are quite unique.
Thalidomy Kids, from Moncton, NB, capped off a three band run from New Brunswick. I truly enjoyed their opening song, ”Spirochaete.” Their dark punk sound was perfect for the gloomy rainy day we were having.
The psychedelic punk sounds of Astral Gunk shook up those who decided to come out early. The boys from Sackville, NB, were clad in Hawaiian shirts and shades. They played a great set that saw many instrument changes. The band just kept switching, bass player to guitar, guitarist to drummer, drummer to guitarist and vocals. Very cool and groovy band, I hope to see them play again.
Before Astral Gunk was Noise Hounds also from Sackville, as they are two of the members of Astral Gunk. This rocking duo of drums and guitar did a good job. They did not say much, but they did introduce their song ”Space Cadet” by saying ”This is our only song that matters, it is about falling in love with an alien.”
Ottawa’s one man punk explosion, ROBOTS!EVERYWHERE!, had the task of opening the day. Hung over like most of the crowd, Phil and his drum machine got the party started. He had a bunch of zombies, i mean fans, singing and dancing at 1 pm, no easy task. The sing-a-longs of ”I Miss my Best Friends” and ”Call Me Some, Looking for Some Time” were a lot of fun. He also changed the words in ”Taco Party” to ”Burrito Party” in honor of the delicious vegan goodies being sold at the back. The sweaty and always entertaining ROBOTS!EVERYWHERE! is worth checking out every chance you get Ottawa.
Something different about Saturday was that they had comedy between sets, hosted by local comedian Greg Houston. The comics tried hard but due to lack of crowd interest and sorry, but not being all that funny, where shown up by a first timer. Davey Quesnell (Pregnancy Scare/Steve Adamyk Band) mostly known for shredding on the guitar made his comedic debut. The funniest part was his excellent story about brother in law and Tim Commerford of Rage Against the Machine and now Black Sabbath. His brother’s nickname is Ozzie yet he had no idea who Black Sabbath was and simply drank beer and went golfing with Tim one time in the States. His brother still refers to the band as Black Tiger. Davey ended his stand up with some gospel for the crowd, ”The only scene that matters is the scene you are a part of.”
Day four of Ottawa Explosion Weekend was amazing and no rain could stop it.