I caught a taste of Moose Jaw indie rock band PandaCorn’s first of two Lethbridge shows this week at the Slice, 
May 2.
The trio, featuring Megan Nash on a couple of keyboards and Brodie Mohninger on guitar, both trading lead vocal duties, opened up the show for about 25 people, dressed in their trademark unicorn and panda costumes while new drummer Ryan Schnell kept the beat.
Their vocal harmonies, as usual, reminded me of a more indie rock Twilight Hotel with traces of Keith and Renee.
Nash added subtle keyboard lines while Mohninger looped guitar rhythms, played catchy, sometimes feedback drenched licks and soloed over them.
They both took turns singing lead vocals and harmonized nicely together.
Nash noted a lot of the songs were about break ups with friends, room mates and, of course, partners.
They played several brand new songs as well, ending their set with an upbeat power-pop number reminiscent of Fountains of Wayne or the Cars, which ended with a hot guitar solo.
They spent their day off in Lethbridge by helping University of Lethbridge radio station CKXU 88.3 cleaning the highways near Warner for the highway clean-up, but were still in fine form for their May 4 show at the Owl Acoustic Lounge with Jesse Northey as well as Jay Bowcott. They played a very similar and enjoyable set which was just as enjoyable.
I hadn’t seen Jesse and the Dandelions for a while, so I was pleased to hear several new songs and a new bassist for this show.
As always, they played, bright, happy sounding pop sounding like a more guitar based Pet Shop Boys, mixed with a bit of U2 and a lot of Vancouver indie rock a la Said The Whale.
They played several songs they wrote about Lethbridge including a good one called “Burning Down” and another new one about people who leave Lethbridge.
Last, but not least, was Calgary indie rock band Peer Support.
They played a peppy set of ambient indie rock featuring an electric violin and beautiful vocals from 
Dominique who also added keyboards and additional percussion.
They took apart a New Order song, giving a nod to their ’80s pop rock roots and slowed it down a lot, then sped it up for the end.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
