Age Of Electric/Live At Crocks….April 7/2017

They call my hometown Thunder Bay the home of the Sleeping Giant and well there was a lot of people sleeping in this town last night (April 7th)  that missed a great show as Saskatchewan’s Age Of Electric  showed up and  played an airtight solid Rock Show in front of the faithful who know what Rock N Roll is about! So if were keeping score myself and Tbone (whom I went with) do know what Rock is about and hey for a couple of us Geezer’s who are 50 years young(Tbone) and myself (come October, I hit the Half Century mark) we still know and love the Rawk!

Todd Kerns(Lead Vocals/Guitar) John Kerns(Bass) Ryan Dahle(Lead Guitar) and Drummer Kurt Dahle took to the stage opening with I Don’t Mind from 1997’s Make A Pest A Pet release which this tour is based around and from there it was 16 more AOE tracks that were featured.

AOE comes across live as a real Ass Kicker of a unit! These guys are seasoned pro’s who have been in the game long enough to know what works in a live setting meaning the AOE are top-notch musicians as guitarist Kurt played a bunch of wicked like solo’s almost at times bluesy but make no mistake as this cat can play the guitar. I know Todd from the stage talked about making new music but where this band excels is definitely in the live setting so perhaps a Live Album is in the making  boy’s?

Speaking of new music not to just make this a nostalgia show AOE played the Four tracks from there recently released  Pretty Things Ep. Kids Break Bones especially come’s across live with Todd and Kurt trading riffs and generally oozing fun from the stage.

Todd knows how to talk to a crowd, basically keeping the vibe going in a positive route with some humour tossed in. At one point  he introduced Kurt as “On Lead Guitar…Ace Frehley “to which he spoke that he would love to be in a band with Ace and just eat KFC and do Cocaine all day” Than he added ‘Well I don’t like KFC!”  He also spoke of Thunder Bay being the ‘Gateway” between East and West and that they were headed East. Even when introducing new songs like Elephant and Keys  Todd would intro it by saying “Here’s a song we are playing for the first time ever…..In Thunder Bay that is!”

Todd also thanked the owner and promoter of Crocks Frank Loffredo for being in the business for 30 plus years or so. Todd also spoke about local opening act Tourist Bureau for playing a great set as Todd says that you should “always appreciate the opening act as it’s like foreplay” and as he added he himself had “been a part of the opening act foreplay a million times!”throughout his career.

Untitled was wicked live with John Kerns bass grumbling while Todd sang the line of “Destroyer/Rebuild/Destroyer/Rebuild” Untitled was a beast live and not to be outdone the crowd sand along with Todd in Ugly.

One song that was played and was tossed in was 1991’s Aphrodisiac Smile which featured Todd jamming out on the  Harmonica while Kurt kept the tune chugging forward from behind his kit.

The Band came back out and wrapped up the night with a two song encore( me and Tbone were  chanting play 8 more songs!)  which AOE closed out with Remote Control.

Course after a few minutes members of the band came out and hung around the merch table to talk to us and they were super cool guys. Just down to earth chaps.

It was pretty cool to get the The Ugly Ep signed long at last and what was even more cool was that John and Ryan don’t even have a copy of it! They all were gracious to sign my CD’s and take the time to chat!

 

 

Great show and thanks once again to Frank for bring AOE to town!

Thanks to Tbone at Rock Til You Drop Photography for the pics..

Now where’s my ride home?(see pic below)