The Sheepdogs - I Don't Get By

So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year yadda yadda hope you had a great one! I was quite intoxicated most of the Winter break and therefore almost broke my key and door handle off trying to get into my car to go to work this morning... Also why I haven't posted in a while... But without further adieu here is a review of The Sheepdogs at the Commodore Ballroom on December 20th.

The Sheepdogs fucking rock. They're basically the only true rock & roll band to emerge in the 21st century (obviously The Black Keys too... but they're a duo). I've talked about them and their history with the Rolling Stone cover contest in prior posts so refer to those if you've been living under a rock and still don't know much about this great Canadian band. 

This is about how The Sheepdogs are retardedly ridiculously radical live. This is the third time that I have seen them live. The first they were an opening act that completely stole the show, the second was a 12pm set at Sasquatch that they just slayed, enduring the brutal start time. But this third show, at the world famous Commodore Ballroom, was by far the best one yet. This was the second of 2 sold out shows and the boys came out to rock. The entire crowd was buzzing, as well as buzzed or beyond ;). I went with yet another large crew and we were there to party to some good ol' rock & roll.

Opening with a blistering "How Late, How Long" the 'dogs were in top form as lead singer Ewan Currie belted out the vocals and the band chugged along behind him. Next came some new tracks followed by the classics "Southern Dreaming" and "Right On". Then one of my favourites off the new album, "Feeling Good" and I was exactly the same, underneath a haze of seemingly never ending smoke. My memory gets a little foggy from this point onwards but I know that it was totally fucking awesome!

Some highlights included the trippy guitar work of "Alright OK" which led into the great organ blaster "The One You Belong To", the cool instrumental "Ewan's Blues", today's song, a personal fave of our crew, and an epic version of "Learn & Burn" which has insane duelling guitars and was a great peak of the show. Finally after over 2 hours and cutting it close to the final SkyTrain departure the band invited out openers Yukon Blonde and local talents Dan Mangan (Epic!) and some guys from Said The Whale for a finale rendition of The Band's classic "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". A perfect ending for a perfect night! A shit load of talented Canadian musicians performing a Canadian classic.

Openers Yukon Blonde put on a raging set. They were the first opening band that we had all deemed were more important that drinking/smoking more and they completely delivered. This was perfect because it forced The Sheepdogs to top them, which they certainly did.

Not much more I can say about this incredible band other than listen to them!