Whitehorse @ Horseshoe Tavern

[caption id="attachment_1732" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Whitehorse Whitehorse @ Horseshoe Tavern[/caption]

. : : March 26th, 2021 : : .

 

Whitehorse has remained one of the hardest working, most visible bands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

The band had a weekly Happy Hour Facebook and Twitter streaming concert, put on for free, for about 3 months. They launched a Patreon, performed a couple of Christmas-adjacent sets from the head office of their record label, released an album, performed a set at a movie theatre drive-in, launched the Horseshoe Hootenanny live stream series with a record release party for their disc, Modern Love, and performed another set live with the Kitchener-Waterloo Orchestra.

 

This recording, of the aforementioned record release party at the Horseshoe Tavern, was the first full-band show (out of necessity, due to pandemic restrictions) since 2019 if I'm not mistaken, and features a familiar line up of Ryan Gavel, Johnny Obercian, and Gregory MacDonald (who seems to be a part of every second name-recognizable band in the country!) alongside husband and wife core duo Melissa McClelland and Luke Doucet.

 

The performance was broken into two sets: the first, an introduction to the Modern Love album, with a selection of six of the dozen songs featured. The second was a quick run through of several obvious, greatest hits tracks from their earlier catalogue.

Nada Surf @ Horseshoe Tavern

[caption id="attachment_551" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Nada Surf Nada Surf @ Horseshoe Tavern[/caption]

. : : November 16th, 2015 : : .

I was afraid I was growing out of Nada Surf.

It was a weird feeling; their mid-career albums Let Go, The Weight Is A Gift, and (to a slightly lesser degree) Lucky were seminal albums for my twenties.

In fact, it was a chance, last minute decision to accompany my buddy to their show promoting Let Go that can be credited with my taping bug. I knew little more than the one hit wonder smash Popular from their debut album High/Low some seven-years earlier, but I was bored with nothing else to do, wanted some company and excitement, and invited myself along.

He had been taping shows he'd been going to for a while, but this was the first time I'd really paid attention to what he was doing and tried to help whenever I could. Without a dollar to my name I'd had to borrow $20 for the cover fee, and when all three bands performing that night (Sondre Lerche and The Long Winters opened) blew me away and I hadn't any money left over to buy their albums, the recordings of the band's sets received frequent, almost exclusive rotation in their stead.

Dwayne Gretzky @ Horseshoe Tavern

. : : October 31st, 2012 : : . What better way to celebrate this year’s Valentine’s Day than with remembering last year’s Hallowe’en? Sure, it might be weird to celebrate Valentine’s…

Cursive @ Horseshoe Tavern

. : : March 31st, 2012 : : . The difference between Cursive‘s performances in Buffalo at Mohawk Place and in Toronto at the Horseshoe Tavern could hardly have been more night and day. And no, not…

The Rest @ Horseshoe Tavern

. : : June 24th, 2011 : : . Following Tacoma Hellfarm Tragedy, I stepped outside The Horseshoe Tavern to grab some delicious street meat (Italian sausage, to be exact). The next band on stage…