I’d heard tell that Clapping Monkeys tap dance, so I couldn’t miss their show, March 19 at the Slice.
You never quite know what to expect with this band as they can play everything from indie pop, to ’90s style Blind Melonesqe rock.
I arrived just in time for the foot stomping Celtic part of the show. The band set the beat as frontman Brock Jellison kicked off his sneakers, donned tap shoes and launched into a freewheeling tap dance on a microphoned board set on the stage that would make Fred Astaire proud, or at least raise his eyebrows and ask what the hell was going on.
Guitarist Cornelius Cole showed his chops and a variety of up tempo styles on the guitar throughout and Dan Espelien was playing some cool bass. If you missed the tapping monkeys, er Clapping Monkeys, catch them at the Owl Acoustic Lounge, March 25.
The main event of the night made me want to form a band. That was because Edmonton’s Soulicitors had a room full of pretty girls dancing in front of the stage, eventually joining the band on stage to dance.
They played upbeat, friendly and oddly familiar sounding reggae pop music that was equal parts Bob Marley and Karl Wolf with a quite a bit of Sublime.
While the songs had an air of sameness about them, they had an unstoppable groove and addictive vocals melodies and even added the odd saxophone to a couple numbers.
They wanted to party as the djembe player leaped into the crowd with his drum and played among them.
They began their second set with an a cappella version of a Sublime song, built up the energy again for the rest of the band to join them and before anyone knew it , it was already past 1 a.m. and time to end the show much to the disappointment of the cheering crowd.