Slices in Time

I have been listening to Ashes of Soma since I first discovered them in late 2009 and had always wanted to catch one of their shows.  I finally got the chance last Sunday (May 5th, 2010) as they played at the Strawberry Festival in Lasalle, Ontario’s Gil Maure Park.

Sharon and I made our way to the festival, parked the van and then went for some street meat at one of the food vendors in the park. Then we made our way to the concert gate. We thought the concerts were free but to our surprise, there was a $5 charge to enter.  Our surprise wasn’t that it cost money to get in, but that it was only $5 to catch 4 rock bands.  The lineup was: Windsor’s “Drop Dead Famous,” Chatham Ontario’s “Finding Core,” Windsor’s own ”Ashes of Soma” and Vancouver’s “Default.”

Drop Dead Famous took the stage first and played a bunch of cover tunes.  they werne’t bad at all, especially since lead vocalist Rob Higgins said that the fest was their 5th gig as a band!

Next up was Finding Core, a rock group that I have never personally heard of. I was pleasantly surprised and loved every tune they performed.  Lead guitarist Eric Broadbent is a virtuoso and played some amazing melodies and arpeggios that just filled the spectrum of sound along with bandmates Kenny Deuxberry (amazing lead vocals!), J.Z. Taine (bass guitar) and Paul Demars on drums. I meant to pick up their CD while I was at the show but didn’t get a chance. Bummer!

Then came the guys that I came to see, Ashes of Soma.  Vocalist Randy Gray had Facebook invited me to a show at the Chubby Pickle previously but I couldn’t make it to that show.  I didn’t even know Ashes of Soma was playing the Strawberry Festival until the day before the festival! As expected, they put on an excellent show.  Randy, guitarist Mike Preney, bass guitar player Joel Bishop and drummer Paul Doman made the evening.  Even though it rained cats and dogs, I enjoyed every minute of the show.  Randy’s voice was as awesome live as it is on the studio tracks (thanks to my niece-in-law Sarith for picking me up their latest CD at one of their shows). Perhaps the most interesting was Paul Doman.  The guy is a madman, whose face contorted to every beat as if he was molding the beats with this expressions alone!  Sharon and I both thought, “what an interesting guy!”  Ashes of Somam for me, were the headliners.  At one point in the show, Randy came out from under the stage cover into the rain and said, “If you guys can stand in the rain I’m going to stand in the rain too!”

Next up was Default, a band that I have liked since I bought their CD The Fallout when it was released.  Dallas Smith and his bandmates made their way thorugh all of our favorites in grand style.

This was definitely a night to remember.  where else could you see 4 awesome bands for free and get to hear and see performances easily worth 10-20 times that much?   Due to the heavy rain, I didn’t want to chance getitng my cameras water damaged but I did take some shots here and there when the rain let up.  I will post higher resolution images on my Flickr later this week.

P.S. Our best wishes and prayers go out to all the people in Leamington who were affected by the F1 tornado that hit town not long after the concert ended.

Enjoy the photo show!

Posted via email from rayakey’s posterous