« Previous Article Back to Latest Articles Next Article »

Concert: Mad Caddies, The Johnstones (Ottawa)
Posted on November 21, 2009 at 11:56 am by Luke

Date: Thursday, November 12, 2009
Venue: Capital Music Hall – Ottawa, Ontario
Bands: Mad Caddies, The Johnstones, The Dirty 30’s

It was a chilly night at Capital Music Hall in downtown Ottawa, but that didn’t stop the venue from becoming almost packed with twenty-year old ska kids out for some good ol’ fashion skank dancing. Headlining the bill was California veterans, Mad Caddies, and opening were Ontario’s own The Johnstones, and the local Dirty 30’s.

The Dirty 30’s were up first and rocked some out of tune ska, they had a couple horns that cheered up the music, but for the most part their songs weren’t catchy enough to stay in everybody’s heads soon after they stopped. The Johnstones took the stage next with their fierce and fiery ska-punk. The crowd started grooving and skanking a tiny bit, but were saving all their energy for the last act. The Johnstones played a fairly long set with a bunch of new tunes and some fun stage bantering in between their songs. The band didn’t have many horns and relied on the cheerful distorted attacks of the guitar and keyboards for most of their third-wave ska. The band kind of reminded me of a harder version of Pepper, lots of sharp edge to the music.

Mad Caddies came on next and started off with a handful from their most recent, and two years old release, “Keep Going”. The ska on their latest has gone very reggae, and their live show has done the exact same. The slow reggae groove in their music gave the entire audience a chance to sing along and just have a good time. A few songs in they gave the crowd a remembrance of their early material, which got some moshing underway, but for the majority, the tunes were reggae slow. Their vocalist put on his guitar for a few songs throughout, and the rest of the band were always singing along and having their own presence on stage, especially the trumpet and trombone players. The band gave a taste of one new song from their upcoming album, which is in the works for early next year, then came back for a three song encore.

Well worth the trip as a good ska show doesn’t hit town very often. Skankers were definitely pleased to hear these bands, and for me personally, I hope it’s not another seven years before I see the Mad Caddies again.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 11:56 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.



Copyright © 2007, Xtremely Media, All Rights Reserved