Ottawa Explosion Weekend Day 5: Average Times, Mother’s Children and The Mandates
Ottawa Explosion Weekend day five, saw the first beautiful sunny day of the festival and father’s day collide for an excellent send off.
Needing to rest up a little and refuel from the night before, I worked my way over to Club SAW in time for Average Times. Another of the many excellent rocking local acts of the festival, Average Times was great. Their set, part of the Mammoth Cave/Hosehead Records showcase, featured some beauties like “Wasted on Wine,” “She Knows” and “Do The Dance.” The guitarist was hilarious throughout the set cracking jokes and using funny voices, such as when he used quite the creepy voice to say “It’s father’s day and you’re not with your daddy…is it because of the money.” Their set also scored the cutest moment of the festival award, as a little kid still in diapers, sporting a fedora with massive ear muffs over top was rocking out to them. It was kind of funny as so many of their songs are about alcohol consumption, thankfully he is surely far too young to understand.
Mother’s Children were next to take the stage. Before their set I saw that they were listed as local, but I had never heard of them. I want to know why nobody ever told me how good this band is! This band has Davey Quesnell on bass/vocals, the drummer from Voicemail on guitar/vocals, the bass player from Average Times on drums and rounding out the four piece is the guitarist/vocalist Paul Lawton . They play a really wicked blend of glam and power-pop. Mid-set Paul took a little stab at New Swears saying “Sorry we don’t have silly string, only brought normal string and that just won’t work.” All in good fun I am sure. My favourite song from their set and now my favourite song of theirs was “See the Other Guy.” It is off their album Lemons which is pretty kick ass.
Roudning out the early afternoon portion of the show was Calgary’s The Mandates. They are another band I checked out last year and really liked. One of the guitarists, sporting a Voicemail shirt, said “This is the best festival in the country, maybe anywhere. It is the best festival I have ever been a part of.” Just like last year, they were great. They play really catchy punk rock with an old school flare to it. I am really into their songs “Neon Light” and “Tonight,” which has such an amazing opening riff. I was very excited to catch those songs live.
Closing out the festival was the Bruised Tongue showcase featuring Blue Angel, Best Fiends, Kappa Chow, The Yips and Roberta Bondar, review to be posted soon. The day came to an end and it was bittersweet, I saw so much amazing music over five days and hung out with so many beautiful people, but it was now time to go back to reality and stop living in the world of Ottawa Explosion Weekend. Thanks to the entire Ottawa Explosion team and all the volunteers, this was the best birthday gift a guy can ask for.