ARTIST REVIEWS
Gods: Honeymoon Suite
Band Line up:
Vocals: Johnnie Dee
Guitar: Derry Grehan
Bass: Rob Laidlaw
Drums: Bret Carrigan
Keys: Peter Nunn
Set List:
The Other Side of Midnight
What I Know
Stay in the Light (Has an extended middle section live)
Burning in Love
Wave Babies
Touch the Sun
What Does it Take
Feel it Again
All Along you Knew
Still Lovin You
Lookin Out For Number 1
Bad Attitude
New Girl
Review:
Things were already running behind by about 30 minutes, so there was barely time to gather one's senses before the first big name of the day burst onto the stage.
Pennington's was filling up big time at this stage. Every corner of the venue was filled with rockers and rollers. It was a great atmosphere to welcome one of Canada's premiere melodic rock groups.
One thing that hit everyone immediately was how tight these guys were.
You just know these guys are on the road. This is a band that plays some 60+ gigs a year and it shows.
The front of house crowd went nuts from the opening track, although vocalist Johnnie Dee was constantly geeing up the crowd to make more noise.
It was only 4 in the afternoon, but the place was buzzing as the band went through a true Greatest Hits set.
Only guitarist Derry and vocalist Johnny remain from the original line up, but the rest of the band have been with the guys 2 or 3 years, so they were as tight as ever.
I have to say that I am looking forward to this set hopefully being released as a full set DVD and CD, as the sound and mix was pristine.
Opening with The Other Side Of Midnight and covering hits from the band's first 3 hit albums, the guys barely left out a single hit.
The guys played What I Know from the current album Dreamland and included only one other new track – Touch The Sun, from the Canadian Lemon Tongue release.
Other than that, it was wall to wall hits, although I did miss Love Changes Everything.
Keyboardist Peter Nunn impressed the crowd with his extended keyboard solo during Stay In The Light, with Johnnie joking with him about when to stop and asking permission for the rest of the band to join him back on stage.
Derry also impressed with his guitar solo, which included a section where he placed the guitar flat and played it almost as a keyboard – reminiscent of Jeff Healy.
But what impressed me most and I think the crowd in general, was frontman Johnnie – who moved seamlessly between seducing the mike stand, thrashing an extra guitar for a fuller sound on some tracks and constantly messing with his hair in the manner only a truly tormented rock star can pull off.
His stage swagger and banter with the crowd was full of rock star attitude – which could have been taken negatively, but the crowd realised that's his style and his act and lapped it up.
Like I said – these guys are one tight out fit and put on a professional display that would on any other day been as good as it gets and a prime candidate for event headliner.
To witness this at only 4 in the afternoon was stunning. The crowd agreed.
