It is always a lot of fun when Ottawa based blues trio MonkeyJunk come to town. They definitely don’t monkey around on stage as they showed stellar musicianship and an absolutely tight set of rock tinged blues music to approximately 140 people at the Lethbridge College Barn enjoying  the Geomatic Attic presentation, Feb. 26.

They got a lot of the audience dancing in front of their stage and the rest tapping their toes.
 While I missed Paul Kype and Texas Flood’s opening set, I was impressed as always with MonkeyJunk.
 

They blend Tony D’s  some sweet guitar licks with Matt Sobb’s  stunning drumming and Steve Marriner’s hot harp playing and unique bass sound courtesy of his baritone guitar tuned down to A.


No less impressive was Marriner’s magnificent tenor vocals.
The band concentrated on music from their latest CD “All Frequencies” but played music from throughout their repertoire, plus some obscure covers.

“ Small Town Evil” was a highlight form earlier in their career.


While  Marriner doesn’t play keyboards anymore on stage, he had his hands full enough with vocals and baritone guitar. He even put that aside for a couple of songs to show off his prodigious harp chops.
 

They also embarked on intense jams on several tracks including  one that must have lasted 20 minutes on an old Lazy Lester song “Sugar Coated Love” which showed off the harp.
 The new tracks were a hit with the audience including “You Make A Mess” and “Why Are People Like That” — one of several songs Marriner sang about “jerks.”


They showed their more sensitive side with a touching slow blues song abut death called “Long Gone” written with another harp master Paul Reddick.
 They picked up the tempo again after that with another jam with a big guitar solo and a thunderous drum solo.

They ended their show with one of my favourites off their last CD “To Behold” called “Mother’s Crying.”
 They were called back for an encore of  ’60s rock and roll classic “Bad Love.”