Last Friday night at The Mansion was electric as three new student bands played their hearts out.
On Oct. 24, Queen’s Music Club (QMC) presented bands TwoTime, Sleep on the Couch, and Doghouse to kick off the faux-Homecoming (FOCO) weekend. However, the show was marketed as a Homecoming (HOCO) offering. Set lists featured everything from ABBA to Guns N’ Roses, serenading the nearly 100-person audience with a variety of musical favourites. With a roaring return to campus after Fall Reading Week, student bands appear ready to keep playing the hits through midterms.
Despite a successful evening, the event faced some setbacks. On the way to the show, TwoTime’s bassist Saif Amer’s bus was stranded on Highway 401 for over an hour.
After pushing the show 30 minutes until Amer arrived, openers TwoTime began the event at 8:30 p.m. with “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon. Lead vocalist Maxim Cameron, CompSci ’29, demonstrated an impressive vocal range, setting the bar high for the evening.
In an interview with The Journal, Cameron said TwoTime is “excited” to join the Kingston music scene. “We’ve all played in bands before, but we were kids. We’ve always been aware of the Queen’s music scene but it’s something you can’t get into if you’re younger,” he said. After almost three years of practicing together, TwoTime’s chemistry shone through onstage, giving them the feel of Mansion regulars.
Sleep on the Couch followed TwoTime at 9:30 p.m. with a cover of Metric’s “Black Sheep” and The Cars’ “Just What I Needed.” The musical vibe for the evening seemed to focus on upbeat karaoke anthems, with Sleep on the Couch encouraging audience members to dance and sing along. During Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” the crowd had the Mansion’s top floor creaking and groaning.
When Doghouse finally took the stage at 10:30 p.m., the frenzied crowd was reinvigorated with a slew of technically brilliant covers like Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing.”
“We play what the people want,” keyboardist Nathan Trudeau, ArtSci ’27, said in an interview with The Journal. For a group that’s only been together for a year, Doghouse’s performance felt like the early sign of Queen’s next big band on the rise. Audience members seemed to agree, as the band’s cheering section was one of the evening’s largest.
QMC Co-President Beth Armstrong, CompSci ’26, said in an interview with The Journal that the HOCO show replaced the club’s traditional Battle of the Bands as their October event. “It’s Homecoming, and we wanted to be fun and do something a little different,” she said.
Reflecting on the lineup of relatively new student bands, Armstrong said that in her first year at Queen’s, established groups like Kings of Queen’s dominated the music scene. Welcoming so many new groups to the stage is “very affirming” of QMC’s efforts to connect musicians at Queen’s.
Excitement from new bands reflects a wider increase in musicality that co-president Andy Ganea, HealthSci ’26, noticed at QMC’s jam sessions. In recent weeks, “the room’s basically filled,” he said of QMC’s jam space in an interview with The Journal. QMC’s numbers “have been continually growing since my first year,” Ganea said.
Armstrong said QMC hopes to host a Battle of the Bands event “sometime this year.” In the meantime, bands and clubs alike are surely enjoying this renaissance for student music, letting the good music carry them into the second half of the semester.
Tags
Arts, Culture, Music, QMC, Queen's Music Club, Student bands, Student life, The Mansion
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