Behold this report on Yukon Blonde’s gig in Ottawa

[This comes from Ottawa correspondent, Ross MacDonald. – AC]

Ottawa is finally emerging from its live music hibernation imposed by the COVID lockdowns, and fortunately, Spectrasonic managed to bring Yukon Blonde, and Jackie to the refurbished Club SAW on Sunday evening.

Opening the night’s show was the hard-rocking quartet Jackie. Originally from Winnipeg, but now Toronto-based, Jackie opened up the night with fast guitar-forward rock.

They are an extremely talented band, not content to rely on strumming power chords, they played powerful licks between the two guitars, all backed up with some nice bright bass lines and solid drumming.

And Jackie certainly got the crowd moving as she put the music into overdrive for the last songs, exclaiming: “Let’s melt some faces!” She was a perfect opening act, with a beautiful balance of energy, vocals, and guitars, fantastic guitars!

Juno-nominated Yukon Blonde took the stage a few minutes later with the audience already pumped up. The five-piece band, with two sets of keyboards, packed the cozy stage.

The best word to describe Yukon Blonde is fun, Jeff was constantly joking back and forth with Brandon and the audience. In the middle of their set, they played their newer music but finished off the evening hard and fast with three fan favourites from their hugely popular album ‘Tiger Talk’: ‘My Girl’, ‘Radio’, and closing out the show with the upbeat ‘Stairway’.

It was a quick trip to Ontario for the west-coast band, but an immense success!

Yukon Blonde:
Jeff Innes – lead vocals, keyboards, guitar
Kelsey Thompson – lead vocals, percussion
Brandon Scott – guitar, backing vocals
Graham Jones – drums, backing vocals
James Younger – bass, keyboards, backing vocals