For those of you in Vancouver, you may already be aware that 100.5 the Peak recently started up the Peak Performance Project for another year and after a rigorous boot camp the 20 bands are set up to do a showcase every Thursday at the Red Room from Sept 9th till Oct 7th. This first showcase's line-up was Jess Hill, Bodhi Jones, Vince Vaccaro and Acres of Lions.
Jess Hill came on to the stage boasting the talented James Lamb as back up and started into her set of soulful singing. Her voice has that throaty gospel quality that lends itself well to her melancholy lyrics. On stage her vibrant personality shone through and fed off the positive energy from the crowd. She was very natural and endearing on stage. As part of the Performance Project, every band must pick out a Canadian classic to cover and Jess Hill picked Bryan Adams' Cuts Like a Knife. She took the song and made it her own, slowing the song down and really using her voice's rich qualities to make it something special.
Next up was Bodhi Jones who plays a singer-songwriter folk rock that felt reminiscent of Jack Johnson. He appeared very comfortable in front of an audience, he worked the crowd from the first song in and they gave him a fair bit of love in return. It seemed to me that he did this a little too much but the crowd stayed engaged for the most part. His cover was Old Man by Neil Young but it didn't really feel like he owned the song opting instead to play a straightforward cover. Bodhi Jones is one of the artists that got carried over from last year's Performance Project so I take it as a sign that the Peak saw potential that possibly needed some more development.
Now came a man that exuded energy every minute he was on stage, Vince Vaccarro. Seeing as I wasn't familiar with his music, it almost came as a surprise when he started up what sounded like reggae meets surfer rock. The crowd really fed off his vigor as he played giving him probably the best stage presence of the night. As his set rolled on, the music got a little more rock in it and was a good lead up to his cover of Sam Robert's Uprising Down Under. As they started into the song it sounded like another cover that was being played in a very similar style to the original. This impression of the cover stuck with me but my friend over at 3am Revelation felt that they started to make the song theirs when the rest of the band kicked in.
The final act of the night was Acres of Lions who were a welcome change as the previous artists were all somewhat downbeat or slower-paced. Not a bad thing by any means but seeing as it was somewhere around midnight, having some music to get the blood flowing was a good thing. They play rock that leans towards pop-punk and is easy music to dance to seeing as it's light, fun and quick paced. A friend described them earlier as being somewhere between Propagandhi and the Weakerthans and it felt fairly apt. Most of their songs are closer to the former but the odd song did start to get a little closer to the latter. Their cover was probably my favourite of the night as they played Corey Hart's Never Surrender. Taking that heartfelt 80's ballad and giving it the pop-punk rock treatment, it was really entertaining and well done.
This is the first of 5 Peak Performance Project showcases, the main purpose of which is for these artists to be judged on their live performances. I can't wait for the next one because it practically stacked: Debra-Jean, Parlour Steps, Yes Nice and Aidan Knight. I'm not shy in saying that Aidan is one of my favourites to make the top three but I wish all the artists the best of luck!
