Concert Review: The Sheepdogs 2011

Every year, the only rock radio station in all of Vancouver hosts the Santa Fox Ball (a Christmasy concert with all their ‘battle-of-the-bands’ winners – called Seeds Bands - and a headliner).

Last night I was lucky enough to go! Apparently tickets for this year’s show sold out in 15 minute so I was definitely on the computer bright and early with my finger poised over the keys…

So the show was at the Commodore, a very mellowed out venue in the downtown area. It has a giant dance floor in front of a raised stage, and seating around the stage area for those who wish to drink, eat, or just bum around. It also has a second floor with more seating and two more bars, and for short people (like me) to actually see the opening bands before I head down into the chaos for the main show.

There were 5 bands altogether that played, the three Seeds Bands (Head of the Herd, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Louder than Love), the opening band (Monster truck), then the main headliner the Sheepdogs.

The Sheepdogs don’t get a lot of radio play so they’re not huge, but they have awesome 80s rock n’ roll and groovy songs.

By the way, a great free music streaming website is www.grooveshark.com: they have every album by nearly every artist – even rare ones – and you can stream their music. So go check out the Sheepdogs!

So onto the concert itself… I’ll try to keep it brief.

Head of the Herd played first, and they were all dressed in the same outfit (black suspenders over white shirts) and they were good! A crunchy 70s-80s vibe, and the lead singer definitely had some swagger in his step. They had a female keyboardist that people seemed to respond well to, as well.

Gentleman Prefer Blondes played second, and I did not like their style of music. They were grungy 70s music (very unintelligible and loud yelling). Just not my cup of tea, though I may have enjoyed them much more if I were in my angsty grade-8 phase. Plus, it definitely didn’t suit the type of demographic that were there for the Sheepdogs, but since they always host the Seeds Bands there’s no avoiding that. 

Following that, Louder than Love played. Another friend said they were good, and they were certainly catchy. They had some solid rock beats, and one point about all the lead singer’s voices is that they were quite similar. They were growly. For an example just take a listen to anything by Avenged Sevenfold.

Monster Truck was good as well, but by this time I was a little tired and the voices were blending together. The only downside to their setlist is some of the songs sounded a little repetitive. Their setlist was stronger, it had a bigger variety of songs and got the crowd more involved. 

This image pretty much captures their essence perfectly...

Finally, the Sheepdogs! They were catchy, personable, grateful, humble, entertaining, and they rocked out. That’s pretty much all there is to say on the matter! They did a Neil Young cover and a Kinks cover and also a Black Keys cover. A lot of their songs were longer than 7 minutes or so, so it was a good groovy set.

This probably won’t be one of the top concerts of 2011, but it was fun and very festive. Everyone was very gracious and there weren’t too many douche canoe people there.

Good show! I give it a 7.8 out of 10.