Short take. I was en route from another show, and unfortunately missed Novillero. According to everyone in the room, the central-Canadian super-group just blew the roof off the place, so even though I didn't see them, just based on their lineage and many respected peoples' opinions that night.

Anyhow, when I arrived, Jets Overhead was just starting up. The Victoria band, which previously was known as The Special Guests! (that started as a bit of a joke name, and ended up getting too confusing), has always dished out good solid pop-rock tunes, and tonight was no different. The new material is sounding great, and the addition (not too recent, but this is only the second time I've seen her) of a backup female vocalist (Antonia Freybe-Smith) to add to the existing vocals from Adam Kittredge, Piers Henwood and Jocelyn Greenwood is nice. Also, I saw for the first time drummer Luke Renshaw with the band. He was well-known and loved with the great and sadly no-longer-with-us Grace Nocturnal.

Likewise, the High Dials ripped into a fun and poppy set. Also with a bizarre name history, this Montreal band was previously known as the Datsons, but with all the Datsuns and Datsun-4's around and gaining popularity, there was just too much mistaking one for the other going on. So the change is welcome. The thing that I find unfortunate is, while it was a really good set, it was profoundly unspectacular. There was nothing that really happened that made it stand out from another solid rock set. All I know was that it got a lot of people dancing at the front of the room. Which is the point really, isn't it?

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published February, 2005.