By: Ethan Grove
Every weekend if you look hard enough you can find a local band playing a show in Ottawa. This weekend we checked out Sinful ways at the Brass Monkey on Friday, and Sunday Riot Club, Neon Ghosthouse and Superfluous at Café Dekcuf.
Building up to Friday night, Sinful Ways had booked their EP release to be played at Mavericks, following some scheduling issues the band needed to find a new venue and luckily found a spot to play at the Brass Monkey just in time.
Sinful Ways dropped their new EP, Darkest Days, a raging heavy metal album, on Friday and that night played a set of almost entirely new songs from the EP.
With huge cymbals and crazy guitar solos played at a deafening volume, the show fit the feeling of the band and you could tell they were doing what they loved.
Throughout the set mosh pits formed in front of the stage raising the energy in the room and matching the emotion of the music.
Saturday saw Ottawa’s Holiday Bash at Café Dekcuf. Sunday Riot Club, Neon Ghosthouse and Superfluous all three bands taking the stage and wowing the crowd with their style, on-stage banter and killer rock music.
Superfluous took the stage first, walking up in a fur coat and sunglasses gave the crowd a taste of what was coming next. The band rolled through a set of original songs and covers. They got the crowd moving with balloons flying around as the set came to an end.
Following that Neon Ghosthouse came up to play their signature mix of punk rock and alt-rock, playing the third show as a band. Due to personal issues, the band parted ways with their drummer a few weeks ago and were playing with a stand-in, but without knowing you wouldn’t be able to tell. It was a fantastic performance, one where you could feel the energy between the band members on the stage
Closing the show Sunday Riot Club got on the stage everyone to the open dance floor in front of them. Constantly breaking out into solos on the guitar and creeping to the edge of the stage. They embodied an infectious party energy that got the whole venue involved and, on their feet, playing original songs and covers of everyone from David Bowie to KISS and Steppenwolf.
All in all, an amazing weekend for Ottawa music with many more shows we were unable to attend!