I got a late start on the third day of the Electric Eye Music Festival, May 9 due to exhaustion from the last couple days an other 
commitments, But I caught some of my new favourites playing all over town.
I caught a little bit of Calgary synth rock band the Catholic Girls at the Slice. They played spooky, freaky, uptempo synth pop with lead singer Sheila Whyte dressed in a black mourning veil backed by band mates Cian Cocteau, Ted MC and Matt Blanche playing Moog synthesizer, a variety of computerized beats and sounds and drums. They Slice was packed for the show and turned dozens of people away at the door.
I would have been happy to park myself at the Owl Acoustic Lounge for the night for a whole lot of Saskatchewan rock.
While I missed the Faps, I was pleased to discover Snake River, a Regina psychedelic country band who sounded like a blend of spaghetti western music mixed with the Sadies hopped up on Pink Floyd with dollops of the Northern Pikes’ Jay Semko.
They had a very laid back, hypnotizing groove with plodding bass, some biting Fender twang and plenty of watery, delay soaked guitars.
They picked up the pace by the end of their set, playing plenty melodic guitar solos.
As usual I decided to see what else was going down in the town for the Electric Eye Music Festival.
The crowd had thinned for Saskatoon metal trio Black Thunder. They were well into their set by the time I arrived. The floor and all four walls were shaking from the bombastic bass, and there were plenty of big, meaty classic rock/ stoner rock style riffs piled on top of that. They took on more of a classic metal feel to wind down their set.
Everybody had wandered over to the Owl Acoustic Lounge and clustered in front of the stage for scrappy Edmonton based girl powered garage rock band the Tee Tahs. Jessica Jalbert and Caity Fisher and Jenni Roberts rocked out with a mix of garage rock, a touch of punk. I couldn’t see over the crowd, but I could hear the band, who played a solid set of hook filled garage rock.
I was going to go home, but was glad I went b
ack to the Slice to see triple guitar powered instrumental rock behemoth Saskatoon instrumental rock band Shooting Guns.
They recorded a soundtrack for a pretty cool independent Canadian horror movie Wolf Cop and played a lot from that.
I was glad I remembered my earplugs for it because they shook the foundations with a wall of guitars, keyboards, bass and drums.
While one would think it would be difficult for an instrumental band to hold a drunk crowd’s attention. It was definitely not the case here.
There were plenty of huge riffs and endless bass groove and a big menacing sound. Plus one of the guitarists opened the set with a few bars of Govt. Mule’s “Bad Little Doggie” so they had me from there.
