Vancouver’s Blackberry Wood, whose numbers once included members of Maria in the Shower brought a shot of old-tyme country with a smattering of Las Vegas cabaret kitsch to the Slice and a truck-load of jazz fueled energy, Aug. 26.

The band, who played the Glastonbury Music Festival this summer for an audience of 200,000, had to settle for 20 loud and boisterous, enthusiastic Thursday night “small but loud crowd” at the Slice. But they gave it all they had with a lot of peppy saxophone, some upbeat percussion, a slide whistle, coconuts and a lot of other odd percussion instruments, plus a muck-bucket bass and a home made theramin as well as a  lot of beaming smiles and leaping around.

They were dressed like they should have been performing on the Las Vegas strip, but sounded like something straight out of a ’30s vaudeville show.
 In addition to numerous peppy originals, they played an upbeat jazz version of Tom Waits’ “I Don’t want to Grow Up,” as well they jazzed up an old Hank Williams standard “Honky Tonkin.’”

Their “song about hobos – Ramblin’” was a crowd favourite as well as another called “Don’t Come Back No More” which featured some beautiful vocal harmonies.
 There was a lot of sexy saxophone playing  and some impressive percussion played by two pretty girls, who put on a show with the band who sounded like the Plaid Tongued Devils but without the dueling fiddles.