Toronto, Canada - On June 6, 2023, Toronto's iconic El Mocambo hosted 2023's installment of Indie Night In Canada. The event brought 18 independent bands from across Canada to 2 stages, to celebrate, and highlight these artists that work tirelessly at their craft. It allows those lucky bands to showcase their stuff to some music industry professionals, and (possibly unsuspecting) music fans over the 7 hour extravaganza.
Each band is allotted a 30 minute time slot to power through a select number of tracks. With the amplifiers cranked up for a 7:00pm start time, some fan preparedness was needed to gear up for what was about to blast through their ears. At 10:00pm, on The Starlight Room Stage, a band from Montreal, burst onto the stage for what would become one of the highlights of the evening.
The Sunset Drip is a trio of rock musicians from one of Canada's coolest cities! Listen, I love the full sound of multiple guitars, and keyboards, and horns, and brass. It brings such a richness to the listening experience. But nothing screams rock and roll more than a gritty 3-piece. Give me drums, a guitar, and a bass, and you won't get anything that's quite as raw. Add the fact that the bassist is also the vocalist, and you've got the coolest combination in all of music.
A 6 song EP titled Bad Driver dropped in 2021. It's the first official release for the band and immediately garnered the attention of local Montreal radio station CHOM 97.7. In fact, the EP's lead single "Where is the Sun" was held in rotation for close to a year. The band's music was also noticed nationwide on CBC radio.
As my pre-conceived notions had already "known" this was going to be stellar, the band laced into their opening track with a fierce energy ala Lemmy and Motorhead. It was such a strong start, that I was immediately drawn in. I thought "Wait a minute! What's this????" At an event like this, there is unfortunately the need for some overlap in band performances between the 2 stages. Impossible to organize this event without this reality, so there was a need for me to bounce from one stage to another. However, once I got a glimpse of The Sunset Drip, I simply wasn't going to leave until the 30 minute set was over. With the frontman's black bell bottoms, and button up shirt, the drummer's shades, and the guitarist's hair down in his face, not only did they sound great, they looked like rock and roll!!
"ALL RIGHT TORONTO! ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS AWAKE???" bassist/vocalist Mike Mosquitolini yelled out after the band's second track, establishing early that nothing short of an electric atmosphere was going to suffice. THIS WAS ROCK AND ROLL!! The crowd was eating it up, even playing air guitar along with the music.
The band plowed through their set, only taking fast breaks to thank the crowd for having them in Toronto, as they were from Montreal, and would be heading back home the next day. The energy was fantastic, and with all due respect to all the other fantastic bands that had performed thus far, The Sunset Drip was one of the best at this juncture.
Mike Mosquitolini - vocals/bass guitar
Brandon Gear - guitar
Michel Paradis - drums
The Drip have a full lineup of shows planned for the summer of 2023 with dates in Quebec, and right here in Ontario. Currently, the next Toronto date is scheduled for August 12 at Bovine Sex Club. I have chatted via social media with a couple fans, and there is a definite following here. These fans have noted that they've seen the band on multiple occasions and they always kick ass.
What more do you need?
Have you ever seen these guys live? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
The Sunset Drip Online
show date - June 6, 2023
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