Edmonton cowpunk/ alt country pioneers Jr. Gone Wild quit playing together about the same time everybody else like Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt and the Bottle Rockets were getting into alt country.
Jr. Gone Wild has had more band members than most people have had pairs of underwear, but put together a superb line up of members including frontman Mike McDonald, bassist Dove Brown, drummer Larry Shelast and lead guitarist/ steel guitarist Steve Loree, when they reunited a couple of years ago.
They still know how to put on a hell of a show and their musical chops cant be beat.
You can’t go wrong with Steve Loree in your band, who provides the perfect counterpoint of tasteful leads and sighing steel to Mike McDonald’s plaintive vocals. He and Dove Brown add perfect harmony vocals while Larry Shelast’s drumming was relentless. 
They’re one of the band you forgot about until you hear their songs. So I was overjoyed to hear “Downtime” as well as the catchy “ I”m So Glad” from their last cassette, 1995's “Simple Little Wish.”
They only had 50 people in the audience, I expected three times as many.
But they had a few freewheeling dancers and lots of addictive melodies which had several people singing along.
They played a few new songs like their latest “Barricades,” plus older material like “The Bachelor Suite” from their 1990 album “ Too Dumb To Quit” and even older material which came in the second set.
“ I’m So Glad,” ended the first set.
They ended their show with my favourite “ Rhythm of the Rain.”
