It was headbanger night at the Sound Garden, Nov. 10 as a full house jumped in front of the stage, threw up the devil horns and danced to the sounds of Calgary based Iron Maiden Tribute Edward the Great.

The Catholic Central graduates returned home to bring the metal in spades.

And they knew their Maiden, as  singer John Sinclair promised in an interview last week,   down to the last note.

 I arrived in the middle of one of my favourite Iron Maiden songs, “Wasted Years,” but they were just getting warmed up. 

They had giant skulls placed on the stage on the Marshall amp stack and a skeleton hanging from the roof. There were lots of bone-crushing riffs and searing dual harmonized guitar solos from throughout the Iron Maiden catalogue.

 Sinclair grabbed a Union Jack flag and waved it throughout one of their songs.

 Some of the highlights were “Two Minutes to Midnight,” and a couple highlights from their  “Number of the Beast” album including the title track and “22 Arcadia Avenue.”

 Another highlight was their epic version of  “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which Sinclair prefaced by asking the audience if they knew what an albatross was.

 I caught the last upbeat indie-rock song from Hunger Hush at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, Nov. 9.  I didn’t catch a lot of them, but will be interested in hearing more from them when they play the Slice, Nov. 18 with Matt Blais, the Utilities and Jesse Northey.

 Most of the good sized crowd stuck around for an energetic an tight set with Winnipeg’s the Details.

 They were a lot of fun, sang some catchy melodies and the attractive blonde-haired bassist , Keli Martin jumped around,  her eyes closed in concentration as she got lost in her own groove  sometimes pausing to  play  some glockenspiel?

 While they started off slowly, they picked up the pace, until the lead singer/ guitarist Shaun Gibson’s amp died. There was a brief break as he asked if Hunger Hush was still in the crowd and whether he could borrow their amp. They brought one in and the band continued the show where they left off,  with more ambient indie-rock.

Toronto based singer songwriter Peter Katz was embraced with open arms by an enthusiastic, yet, attentive crowd, Nov. 9.
 This show actually started early, so I missed half of it. But I arrived in time to hear a couple of exceptional new songs.

 As well,  a beaming Katz came into the middle of the  audience, acoustic guitar in hand to play “Oliver’s Song,” a song dedicated to violin virtuoso Oliver Schroer, who passed away from leukaemia a few years ago.

 Katz confessed he had a scare with leukaemia as well, but it fortunately  was a misdiagnoses. But he spoke fondly of his old friend Schroer, noting he Schroer billed his last concert as “his last concert on this planet,” and noted he learned a lot from Schroer, like having a sense of humour about life and living life on his terms.

 Katz told a lot of stories and noted this show was different than his last show at the Slice.
“There’s nobody playing  pool like last time,” he recalled, laughing “I had to pay them $20 each to stop playing, but luckily they paid it back to me after the show.”

 Everybody was hanging off his every word this time as he talked about recording his new live CD/ DVD which was recorded during the CD release show in Toronto for his last CD “First of the Last To Know.”

He ended his show by playing the title track of that CD  to rousing cheers, using a sampler to record the chorus and main chord progression and singing over it. He ended to ear-splitting whistles and went back into the middle of the crowd to play a touching request of crowd favourite “The Fence.”

He prefaced the performance by saying he didn’t want to depress the audience then told the story about Matthew Shepard, the young, homosexual university  student from Laramie, Wyoming who was lured out to the woods, beaten and left for dead, tied to a fence, where he later died.

 He ended his encore on an upbeat, uplifting note by playing a rousing cover of the Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

While Vancouver based singer/ songwriter Matthew Good ‘fell into music’ at a late age,  he hasn’t had a lot of time to look back.

“I’ve always been into fine arts. If I wasn’t doing music, I would be doing something creative,” noted Good enjoying a day off in Calgary.

He will be playing the Stone, Nov. 17 with Daniel Wesley —  a rare bar show on a tour dominated by theatre shows — which is where he’d rather be playing.
 The theatre they wanted wasn’t available, so they got booked into the Stone.

“I enjoy theatre shows more by far. I‘ve been doing this for 18 years and they’re a different atmosphere. People are there to listen to the show. In a bar, alcohol is an integral part of the experience and it takes people’s attention away from the show,” he said.

 Lyrics are an important part of his music. But he’d rather write them ambiguous enough so people can interpret them on their own and find their own significance in them.
 “ The last two albums were written about two very particular subjects,” he said adding the latest CD  “Lights of Endangered Species,” doesn’t have a common theme.

“ There is no overall theme to the new album. I’d prefer people to interpret the music for themselves and find their own meaning then say this is what it means to me. That’s the power of music,” he said.

 While the Lethbridge show will concentrate on the new CD, he’ll choose a few older tracks as well.

“I only have a finite amount of time to play. We’ll be focussing on the latest CD, but I try to choose songs from throughout my career. I just love to play music,” he said. He is playing with Matthew Good Band drummer Ian Browne.
 As expected, a lot of people sing along with him.