Last year on the Monday after the Regina Folk Festival I attended a house concert by Toronto alt-country/folk band The Wooden Sky. I did it as research for an article I subsequently wrote on the increasing popularity of house concerts as an avenue for smaller-scale bands to connect with indie music fans in communities large and small across Canada.
Someone offers to host a gig, people bring their own “refreshments” and are treated to an intimate acoustic show, and pass the hat at the end of the night to provide the band with a bit of revenue and/or buy some merch. It’s not as lucrative as a larger club show, but that may not have been available to the band anyway, and the people who do show up are real music fans, not just out for a party or the pick-up scene.
This year, the Monday after the Folk Festival also delivers a solid musical option in the form of Airbourne at Conexus Arts Centre Convention Hall. Airbourne is a hard-rocking quartet out of Australia that lists among it’s musical influences Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Motorhead and AC DC. Tix for the all-ages show are $25. To get the juices flowing, here’s the video for their song “Diamond in the Rough”.
