Collective Concerts and Indie 88 presented the second annual Cover Me Impressed show at Lee's Palace on Boxing Day. It's a charity show for SKETCH Working Arts and the Daily Bread Food Bank. I'm writing a post for each of the two sets performed that night. The first set featured the host band
Sam Cash and The Romantic Dogs, members of The Autumn Stones, members of Union Duke, Matt Angus of Fast Romantics and Ian Blurton of Public Animal, C'mon and Change of Heart,
Sam Cash and The Romantic Dogs took to the stage to start things off with one of my favourite tunes of all time, Nick Lowe's "Cruel to be Kind", followed by Graham Parson's "Local Girls" and Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic". Great start to what would turn out to be a fantastic night of music.
Members of
The Autumn Stones were up next with "Babies" by Pulp, "The Cutter" by Echo and the Bunnymen and "She Bangs the Drums" by The Stone Roses. Their covers featured some great sax; a different one for each tune.
Members of
Union Duke jokingly tried their best to pass off their cover songs as their own, but no one was having it. They performed Bruce Springsteen's "The River" followed by Bahamas' "Little Record Girl" and closed with The Wallflowers' "One Headlight". They were truly in the Christmas spirit with some great Christmas sweaters.
Matt Angus of
Fast Romantics joined Sam Cash and The Romantic Dogs next for their rendition of the Sam Cooke classic "Bring it on Home", Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" (another all-time favourite of mine) and Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City". All great renditions of classic tunes.
Local alternative rock / guitar god
Ian Blurton closed out the main set with a killer duo of tunes. He handed a cowbell to an audience member for the MORE COWBELL tune of Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper", another of my all-time favourites, followed by Thin Lizzy's "Rosalie". I love listening to Ian Blurton perform in any of his projects - Change of Heart, C'mon and Public Animal - and this was no different. Very rockin' versions of some awesome tunes with most excellent guitar playing.
And with that, Set 1 came to a close. So far so good. A tight, well organized set of great covers by a wide range of artists. This was going to be a great night.
