HALIFAX, N.S. — Another Friday night, another legendary band night at Halifax’s beloved local bar Oasis, where the beer is warm, the sound is questionable, and the crowd is sweaty.
The scene at the city’s premier venue for up and coming musicians was electric. Mostly due to an overworked amp sparking near the bassist’s foot. The lineup promised an evening of listening to your campus cryptid who is spotted occasionally in the depths of the Killam, bonded only by mutual eye contact, who opened the show with a seventeen minute saxophone solo.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you,” a long-haired male near the sound system told the Mackerel correspondent. Unfortunately, band night is not the best place for interviews.
Following the crowd outdoors between sets is where the real party begins, or the lung cancer, depending on how you like to view things. Outside, Mackerel correspondent was able to bum a dart, and spark an interview with, a groupee. She described the band playing that night, Toxic Shock, as a new wave of “poet-rock” that meshes together the likes of Post Malone and Guns N’ Roses. She insisted on explaining the meaning of every song, but the interview had to be cut short due to her microdose turning into a macrodose.
The true stars of the night, however, were Gus and the Unemployed, a group of thirty-somethings who still believe Halifax’s music scene is “just one break away” from putting them on the map.
As the night wrapped up, the bartender kindly reminded the bands that drink tickets do not, in fact, count as real currency.
By Matt MacDonald