A beautiful July night in Montreal can’t be beat, especially when you get a chance to hear four outstanding indie music acts for free at RAC Montreal’s Concert Series. Recording Arts Canada would like to congratulate Static Gold, Farewell Davidson and Chair Warriors for great performances, and is pleased to announce that The Vare took home the top prize for the best performance of the night, as deemed by a panel of industry professionals in attendance.
The panel of label reps, award winning engineers, and studio owners evaluated each band’s performance. The Vare is looking forward to recording new material that it plans to release in the very near future. They join FM HI LOW, Foreign Diplomats, Tofu Stravinsky and James Taylor as bands that have recorded material for up-coming releases at RAC’s Montreal studios.
Once again, the staging of the Concert was handled by Recording Arts Canada students. The event was co-ordinated by Justin Wiley. The lighting and sound was excellent, and the RAC student crew did a fantastic job. Joey Langlois did another stellar job as MC.
A very supportive crowd greeted every band with a boisterous level of appreciation. As is now tradition at RAC Concerts, each band, after completing their set, hung out to listen to the other acts. It was another great night of music at the RAC Concert Showcase. As always, every act walked away with a prize and valuable constructive feedback from this group of accomplished and insightful industry professionals on the panel. At RAC, we’re delighted to help bring new audiences and industry exposure to these artists. All the bands were able to bring their music and merch to a new crowd, thanks to the great turnout.
On Stage B, the audience was treated to some great unplugged sets. Starting with Ogen, a very talented singer-songwriter from Montreal who played 3 songs: Old Man, Holding on to Home, and Eugene. Ogen will be releasing his debut album on July 26th at Kafein in Montreal. The creative and expressive song writing machine known as Ben Cardilli also performed acoustic versions of some of his material. A tender voice rich with emotion and dynamics was on display again, as Ben sang Empty it out, Chances are, and Long shot. These side stage performances gave the audience a chance to hear some great guest performers while the crew worked on preparing the main stage for the next set.
Recording Arts Canada student DJ Bishop spun some great tunes between performances, and a special guest appearance by talented producer/writer/hip-hop artist David Hodges,who knocked off some energetic hip-hop and some fantastic rhymes. Hodges is a motivated man on a mission, spreading the word about the power of music to underprivileged youth.
So, here’s a quick breakdown of each band’s set, in order of appearance.
Static Gold started off with Speaking Easy, Circles, Little Did I Know, Dance, Fury’s Dance. Lead singer Zaya Solange, who originally hails from Haiti, is a magnetic performer. The band’s Funkadelic Swing sound is a sizzling blend of funk, soul and jazz. The retro Harlem sound in a couple of songs was impressive. Band members are: Zaynab “Zaya” Solange: Vocals, Daniel Pombo:
Guitar, Samuel Chaco Kohn: Keys, Thomas Viardot: Bass, Beth Mckenna:
Tenor/Alto sax, clarinet, flute, Louis “LoudHands” Souverain: Drums
Farewell Davidson : A no-nonsense, in your face set by these young lads from the Ottawa area was quite impressive. Shades of Green Day at times, this is a very young but extremely tight quartet that has a tremendous future. Band members are: Ryan Wiles – Lead Vocals & Guitar, Zac Liberty – Lead Guitar, Alex Claro – Bass, Victor Antunes – Drums.
The Vare is a very talented Montreal band that has a diverse and entertaining blend of styles. The Vare kicked off with Kindness, and continued with Untrue, Confrontational, Surrogate, Another Reflection, Foreign Way and BodyHeat. Mood, energy, and great musicianship was all on display. Band members are: Mikey Desjardins (Vocals, Guitar, Drums), Gabriel Dennis (Drums, Vocals, Piano), Jeffrey Lauber (bass, guitar), Lucas Liberatore (guitar, bass, piano, vocals).
Chair Warriors put on a very polished yet high energy show, starting off their set with Art of War, then showcased Pill, Shogun, Saviours and closed with Liars. Band members are: Brandon Mignacca (vocals & keyboards), Robert Flis (Guitars & vocals), Gopal Devanathan (drums). Mignacca handles keys, vocals and bass duties (with his left hand) – and was very impressive. For a trio, they certainly fill the room with a full sound.
The bands are given constructive feedback on their performance and a chance to win free studio time at the Recording Arts Canada world class studios located in Old Montreal and Toronto. The Recordng Arts Canada Concert Showcase Series has featured both label acts and indie artists, with a range of musical styles that cover Contemporary, R&B, Hip Hop, Alternative, Electronica, Indie Folk, Punk, Country, and Dance, and everything in between. Recent events have featured FM Hi Low, Ben Cardilli Band, Tracer Flare, Syzzors, Foreign Diplomats, Amasic, Stefanie Parnell, Eliza, Brittany Kwasnik, Be Astronaut, James Taylor, King Karoshi and Tofu Stravinski.
Read more about RAC’s 5th Concert Showcase winners and performances, held on April 27th, 2014 here.
RAC’s 6th Concert Showcase is evidence that Montreal is one of the world’s hottest music talent hubs. This is just one of many exciting events hosted by RAC, all with the aim of helping build bridges to the industry and successful careers for both emerging recording artists and Recording Arts Canada students. For more information on this or other RAC events, please call us at 514-286-4336, or send us an email at [email protected]
