Kingston was full of entertainment on Friday night. 

The cold temperatures was not a factor this night for some, and for the people who didn’t fringe the cold weather WOW you people missed out Large, and I mean Large. First there was FebFest that featured the Stanley Cup at City Hall then there was live on the outdoor stage that was erected during the day to play host for Bullmoose and The Trews. Then there was Rock Crew Productions who were at the Grad Club hosting The Golden Dogs, The Yoko Casionos and Major Grange. 

I got to the Grad Club around 10:15 and I noticed that there were more people already there than what I thought there would have been. Major Grange already had started their playing their ten or so song set. I haven’t heard of Major Grange before so I was surprised to see that Neil Quin of The Golden Dogs was playing drums for the band. I am always impressed when I see someone play two instruments and then to see that it is in another band altogether. 

For other people who don’t know who Major Grange is they are a three person band, one drummer, one guitarist and one bassist. But on a few occasions their lineup can have more than just one Golden Dog. This night nobody else came onto the stage to play with the band. Their sound is can be described as Rock, a Country tinge, Beatles Rock. A Couple of their songs were played at a slow tempo and some were played at a medium speed. Their stage presence was pretty bland they mostly just stood in front of their mics during their performance. Their music would fit in well in a place where people could sit down and relax and watch them play. 

Yoko Casionos was a big reason why I showed up at The Grad Club. I first saw the band when they opened up for Sloan a few months back. Since their performance there I kicked myself in the ass for not picking up a copy of their album. “Cameras On” was the one of the songs that I was looking forward to hearing. This is easily a song that could carry a band to the #1 spot on any chart. Like most great rock songs it is the starting of the song that hooks your ears into listening to the song. This song just pulls any idea of changing to other songs on the album. The song is by far the most powerful song from the album but when they got to playing it live WOW they pretty much blew the roof off of the Grad Club. I also liked how they placed the song in the middle of the set list because they were able to feed off of the energy from the crowd as pumped more volume into the song. 

I find the problem with the Grad Club is that there isn’t enough room for the band. They are more or less restricted to stand in one place. For a band Like Yoko Casionos they needed more room to play. But Kieron and Misty broke off from the stage and went out into the crowd to play and bend up a couple of chords. Misty and Chad also do a little switch-a-roo with their instruments; Chad goes from playing bass to playing the guitar and Misty take up the bass. 

Their set list included almost all of their songs off of their 2nd album but first full length album. A couple of their songs also gave off a funk feeling during the night because of their track “Nice To Meet You”. After hearing the opening to the song minus the horns from the disc you couldn’t really help but move your feet and body like the band was doing, Their music somewhat took a hold of you. Another song that was great live was “Loose Cannon” the song can somewhat describe their live performances. 

Yoko Casionos Set List 
1. Hand the world 
2. Loose Cannon 
3. The New Old Times 
4. Dove-Eyed 
5. Cameras On 
6. No Regrets 
7. MY Dreams SCI-FI 
8. Black Nite Crash 
9. Stars On 11 
10. Nice To Meet You 

This was my second time that I have witnessed The Golden Dogs live. This show blew the first time I saw them out of the water. I thought the Yoko Casionos were packed onto the stage; the Golden Dogs were packed onto stage even worse. Neil and Stew had to turn sideways to fit onto the stage. This night their pop music sound was changed more to a rock sound. I found there was way more energy put forth from the band than I saw before. They had the entire place moving around especially the people at the front of the stage. One song that really showed more of a rock sound was Construction Worker. The song was also sped up a few notches and the speakers were probably as loud as they could have been. One song that I was surprised that the Golden Dogs didn’t play was “1985”. 

The first song that the band played was “Bird Song”. At the start you couldn’t really hear the keyboards all that well but luckily that was fixed quite quickly. “Never Meant Any Harm” was the second song that they band played. This was the song that made me a fan of the band. By the time “Dynamo” was being played everybody who was in attendance was in full swing as the band was, People where chanting Dynamo back at the band. “Saints At The Gates” had people marching along with the band. Dave also made the crowd watch as Neil tried to flex and show off his pipes for the crowd. 

The drums also felt the strong heat at which the Golden Dogs were playing because the second last song the foot pedal broke right through the skin of the drum. “Yeah” was the last song that the band played which was followed with each member taking a piece of the drum kit and hitting it and Neil was using the plug and plugging it in and out of Dave’s guitar to create a sound to follow the drums. One song that was left out of their set list that I wanted to hear again is their rendition of Neil Young “Helpless”. I asked Dave at the end of the show what happened and he said this was the first time that they didn’t play that song in Kingston. 

The Golden Dogs Set List 
1. Bird Song 
2. Never Meant Any Harm 
3. Strong 
4. Don’t Make a Sound 
5. Construction Worker 
6. Runouttaluck 
7. Saints At The Gates 
8. Force Of Nature 
9. Arrow 
10. Yeah 

www.myspace.com/thegoldendogs
www.myspace.com/theyokocasionos
www.myspace.com/majorgrange

Matt Hartwick
m.hartwick@partyinkingston.com