A show by Calgary rock and roll band the Dudes is always a celebratory event.

 They were doing double duty, Friday, April 13 as they were also playing the last Class bash at the university earlier. I caught most of their show at the Owl Acoustic Lounge.

As expected they had an enthusiastically, sweaty sold out crowd for the special ticketed event, though it didn’t feel like a sellout. They played a solid set of catchy, crunchy rock and roll with a touch of soul and whole lot of late ’90s/ early 2000s indie rock flavour.

They had a lot of groove and were all about good vibes and happiness even though some of the songs like “Everybody Dies Too Soon” have darker lyrical themes. Nobody sounds quite as happy singing about death as frontman Dan Vacon does.

Vacon sang in an appealing adenoidal tenor drenched in soul.
 They played a lot of crowd favourites and several tracks from their apty titled latest album “East Side Good Times. One memorable number was “No. 1 Fan.”

They included plenty of older familiar crowd favourites like ‘Good Times” which summed up the show.
 Their tight set had most of the audience dancing in front of the stage throughout the night.