Hey kids.
What were you doing Saturday night? I’ll tell you what I was doing. I was watching a band rock out on stage at the El Mocambo in Toronto. A band that you’re going to be hearing a lot from in the future. The Cunninghams.
These 4 guys took the stage and rocked it like they owned it. And the crowd was appreciative. This is the same stage that has seen the Rolling Stones, The Police, U2, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix wow audiences. And while those are names that you know and love now, The Cunninghams is a name that you’re going to know and love in the future.
Nigel, Pierce, Clapsbury and Reggy Cunningham call themselves the Royal Family of Rock and Roll. And after seeing them on stage Saturday night I can’t argue, except for one thing, they aren’t pretentious and bitchy. These guys love what they’re doing. There’s none of that disconnected, we’re better than you, feeling when they take the stage. No body guards, no parade waves, no garbage. What you will see is an audience having a good time, dancing on the floor and on the stage (audience highlight of the night was a combo of 2 girls and a dude hoping up to dance behind Pierce and shaking what their mama’s gave them). You’ll see beers being chugged by Clapsbury on a break from rocking the bass, heck you might even see him jumping down into the crowd to bring everyone one step closer to the action. And through it all you’ll see people having a good time. From the front row to the back, eyes were all on the stage, feet were tapping and heads were bobbing on non-dancers, like me.
The reason for the show was the video release for “Gunblaster”, listen to the track here: www.myspace.com/thecunninghamsband the video premiered to the audience before the boys took the stage and the crowd dug it. There were fists pumping, hips shaking and eyes glued to the big screen behind the drum kit. Not a bad way to give a first look. Thumbs up from me.
And when you see the video, I’ll give 1000 bonus points to the first person who can tell me who the 1980’s icon rocking the shades is. Remember that, 1000 points are up for grabs.
Other show highlights included Reggy pounding on the drums in a way that makes me realize my skills on Rockband do not translate to real life. The shared vocal duties of Pierce and Nigel who make the rock and roll sound real. And the fact that the crowd showed up minutes before The Cunninghams took the stage. This was clearly a crowd that came to see these boys play.
I’m glad I was with them. $5 dollars at the door is a bargain compared to what ticket prices are going to be in the future. I promise you that. And even then, it’s going to be worth it.
I snapped a few pictures from my BB, I know they aren’t great, but there are real pictures coming from a dude with a real camera who knows what he’s doing. I’m going to throw some of those up with some more links and such later this week. They’ll also be on the twitter feed www.twitter.com/wallyzblogger don’t forget to add me so we can talk music.
If you want to find more info on the boys who take the stage as The Cunninghams hit up their website www.thecunninghamsband.com there you’ll find the links to Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. And as an added bonus, when you go to the Myspace page you can download the EP and rock out whenever you want.
All said and done, Saturday night was a good time. I got to rock out while E-ve was at work, got reminded why I love live music. And remembered to write down the links so that I could find the tracks when I got home. Throw it all together and you get a big bucket of win.
High fives kids, have a great day. And remember, when you find something that you like, share it!
