The third annual Holiday Jam took place this past Wednesday evening. The show benefits the Sick Kids Foundation. The performers this year were Buck 65, Matt Mays, Kathleen Edwards, Sam Roberts, Sarah Harmer, and The Tragically Hip. On stage first was Buck 65. He did three songs, ending with a nice rendition of “T’was The Night Before Christmas”. Next up was Matt Mays. As with Buck 65’s set, this was nother short but sweet set. Matt did three songs one of which he was accompanied by Alanna Stuart. Kathleen Edwards was on stage next. Sharing the stage with her was Justin Rutledge, Colin Cripps, and Jim Bryson. They performed four songs, two originals and two covers. The originals being one by Ms. Edwards and one by Mr. Rutledge. The other two songs were covers of Springsteen and Neil Young. After Kathleen was Sam Roberts. Ms. Edwards, though, was back out to help perform Sam’s second song “Bridge To Nowhere” to which Sam quipped “you might remember her from the last set”, which got a nice laugh from the audience. It was all in fun ofcourse, no slight intended. Mr. Roberts also brought out Matt Mays to perform a J. J. Cale song entitled “Magnolia” and for his last song, he called upon Jason Collet, whom he was recently touring the US with, to help perform “Christmas Must Be Tonight”, a song by The Band. After Sam Roberts was Sarah Harmer. Sarah started off with a beautiful cover of The Ramones’ “Merry Christmas”. My favourite song of the night. For the third song Sarah passed the songstress duties onto Julie Fader who performed her song “Middle Of The Night” with Sarah on drums. Last but not least, The Tragically Hip were up to cap off a great night of music. They opened with the Bob Dylan song “Night Like This”, to which im told by a friend, a self confessed Dylanomaniac, that Dylan himself has never performed this song live. “…the first rule of entertainment, rock ‘n roll is never apologize, and im not apologizing…just started in the wrong fuckin’ key alright” says Gord D. after a false start of “In View”. The Hip went on to perform eight more songs, four originals and four covers by Eddie Cochran, The Band, David Bowie, and as a grand finale with everyone out on stage, a Gordon Lightfoot song to cap off the evening. This was my first Holiday Jam and i thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope to enjoy many more in the years to come. Thanks to everyone who was involved.

Buck 65:
01 Indestructible Sam
02 Heather Nights
03 T’was The Night Before Christmas (Clement Clarke Moore)
Sample: buck652006-12-13_t01_sample.mp3
Download: buck652006-12-13.akg463.flac16.zip

Matt Mays:
01 Glass Heart Shatters
02 Under My Senses $
03 (need help with this one)

$ with Alanna Stuart

Sample: mattmays2006-12-13_t01_sample.mp3
Download: mattmays2006-12-13.akg463.flac16.zip

Kathleen Edwards:
01 Six O’clock News %
02 Does It Make You Rain (Justin Rutledge) #
03 Im On Fire (Bruce Springsteen) &
04 Back To Me $
05 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Neil Young) $

% with Justin Rutledge
# Justin Rutledge on lead vocals
& Luke Doucet on lead vocals
$ with Luke Doucet

Sample: kathleenedwards2006-12-13_t03_sample.mp3
Download: kathleenedwards2006-12-13.akg463.flac16.zip

Sam Roberts:
01 Magic On My Mind
02 Bridge To Nowhere $
03 Magnolia (J. J. Cale) %
04 Christmas Must Be Tonight (The Band) &

$ with Kathleen Edwards
% with Matt Mays
& with Jason Collett

Sample: samroberts2006-12-13_t04_sample.mp3
Download: samroberts2006-12-13.akg463.flac16.zip

Sarah Harmer:
01 Merry Christmas (I Dont Want To Fight Tonight) (The Ramones)
02 Pendulums
03 Middle Of The Night $
04 The Ring
05 Lodestar

$ sung by Julie Fader; Sarah Harmer on drums

Sample: sarahharmer2006-12-13_t01_sample.mp3
Download: sarahharmer2006-12-13.akg463.flac16.zip

The Tragically Hip:
01 Night Like This (Bob Dylan)
02 In View
03 C’mon Everybody (Eddie Cochran)
04 It Makes No Difference (The Band)
05 Bobcaygeon
06 Pretend
07 Queen (David Bowie)
08 Family Band
09 Fireworks

ENCORE:
10 Summer Side Of Life (Gordon Lightfoot) &

& grand finale featuring all artists

Sample: tth2006-12-13_t01_sample.mp3
Download: tth2006-12-13.akg463.flac16.zip

*note: i hope you all dont mind, but i put the intro to the show infront of each performance. I figured it would be a good thing for those who only hear one or two shows to know why the concert was put on and who it was for.

Black Hat Brigade and Snowden and Forward Russia. Can it get any better? Well, yea it did. A few days before the show i received a bulletin on myspace about a ticket giveaway for the show through spin.com and Forward Russia. I entered it thinking i had no chance to win simply because i never win anything, but, two days before the show i got the email saying i had won passes. Anyways, i got to the venue around 9:15 and setup my mics and picked a spot to set my gear. The crowd was thin but was rapidly filling in.

Black Hat Brigade took the stage around 9:45 or so. They are a local band from Brampton. Ill admit i had not seen, nor heard, the band before this show, but, i really enjoyed their set and have been listening to the recording quite often. And, after a few emails back and forth between us, they seem like some nice fellows. Their 8 song, 40 minute set concluded around 10:30 and next up was Snowden, a band out of Atlanta.

This was my first time seeing Snowden live. Again, i was impressed. Everything sounded great. The crowd was getting thicker and the area in front of the stage was beginning to fill in more. Snowden’s set was 35 minutes and 7 songs. I had the chance to talk to Chandler and Jordan after the show. Really nice guys. They’ll be back in town next spring. Next up, Forward Russia.

Ive been waiting awhile to see Forward Russia, a band out of Leeds. Ive seen some footage and heard other live recordings of some of their shows and really couldnt wait to see them. They have been touring relentlessy this year. From the UK to the US, back to the UK, back to the US and Canada, back to the UK. They took the stage right around midnight. With all this touring and no time to rest his voice, lead singer Tom has been having some vocal problems on this tour. Admirably, instead of canceling dates they are soldiering on, playing an abbreviated set of about 9 songs, 45 minutes. The band sounded great though and Tom’s voice held in there until that last few songs when it became noticably strained.

Black Hat Brigade’s Setlist:
01 The Church That Burned
02 Enola
03 Skeletons Dont Have Bones
04 Medals & Meadows
05 Pavement Cloud
06 All Things Equal
07 Haunted
08 World Of Things
Sample: blackhatbrigade2006-12-01_t02.mp3
Download: blackhatbrigade2006-12-01.akg463.flac16.zip

Snowden’s Setlist:
01 Like Bullets
02 Filler Is Wasted
03 Anti Anti
04 Stop Your Bleeding
05 Between The Rent And Me
06 Black Eyes
07 Victim Card

Forward Russia’s Setlist:
01 Thirteen
02 Fifteen (part 2)
03 Twelve
04 Eighteen
05 Sixteen
06 Seven
07 Nine
08 Eleven

Sample: forwardrussia2006-12-01_t07_sample.mp3
Download: forwardrussia2006-12-01.akg463.flac16.zip