Clark Hall Pub hosts independent bands for a night of live music

Jaime O’Halloran, The Dirty Nelsons and Bo Welland energize campus pub 

Image by: Will Alley
Lead Singer Colin Macleod of the Dirty Nelsons

Clark Hall, isn’t that an engineering bar? Guess again folks.

In addition to the classic Wednesday night trivia and Friday afternoon Ritual, Clark quietly hosts a cocktail of different “wild card” Thursday nights for any faculty to enjoy, from euchre and foosball tournaments to the Nashville country music nights, and most recently, Clark Indie — an event showcasing local indie talent. 

This week’s Clark Indie featured three acts, all hailing from Ontario. First up was a solo act Jamie O’Halloran, followed by groups, Bo Welland and The Dirty Nelsons.

O’Halloran kicked things off with a solo acoustic performance, serenading Clark Hall’s clientele with a gentle and mellow mix of rock and roll and classic country hits.

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Photo by Will Alley

Following O’Halloran was the four-man group, Bo Welland. These guys boasted a playlist of original songs, entertaining the crowd with their grunge-rock attitude. Shortly after taking the stage, the crowd started to form around the band with encouragement from lead singer Jack Reddon, whose mantra “chairs fucking suck” demanded dancing instead of sitting.

The band’s solid set made it clear that this wasn’t their first rodeo. The group didn’t shy away from the crowd, even leaving the stage to dance with the audience at times.

The group seemed very much at home on stage as they calmly downed beers and cracked jokes in between songs. For their last number, Bo Welland gave the crowd a sneak peek of their upcoming EP with a high-paced track titled ‘Rampage’

You can catch these guys playing all over Ontario and Quebec, and rumour has it they’ll be back playing in Kingston this March.

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Photo by Will Alley

The final act of the night was The Dirty Nelsons, a fresh band of Queen’s engineering students (Zack Harley, Hayden Estabrook, Colin Macleod, Matt Carter and Lucas Manuel), who got together over a common love of jamming out to good music. 

The Dirty Nelsons put on a high-energy show with on-point song choice as they dished out a set of banging covers, from Outkast to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and an untitled original.

After Bo Welland got the crowd up and on their feet, The Dirty Nelsons whipped them up. More than once, a mosh pit broke out, and every person in the bar was belting out lyrics along with the band. The band stayed on for a three-song encore and brought a friend from the crowd up on stage to perform a mash up of ‘Say It Ain’t So’and ‘I Love College’ by Weezer and Asher Roth, respectively.

As cool as it is to see big name artist perform live, there’s something special about witnessing some unsigned musicians who just really love music and the small campus scene.

Tags

bo welland, Clark Hall, jaime o'halloran, the dirty nelsons

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