The Pack A.D @ The Vancouver Jazz Festival

The pounding of drums and the snarl of the guitar got my beer buzzed ass staggering closer to the stage. I was looking forward to seeing this show having become a recent fan of the gritty, raw, and wildly wonderful sounds that are The Pack A.D. Even though Becky Black and Maya Miller had just flown in from Whitehorse the show was energetic, unapologetic and hilarious. Wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt Maya was entertaining not only with the timed crashing of her drums but with her comedic timing as well.

During their set I danced, worked up an intense sweat, drank more beer and felt like smoking some strong cigarettes. I think it was the combination of the powerful sexy guitar, the raspy rockin’ blues vocals and the wicked adrenaline running through my veins that did it. It was a good show to say the least.

The Pack A.D are on the Vancouver based label Mint Records which is cool. Influences are Muddy Waters (cool), John Lee Hooker (also cool) and Aretha Franklin (do I have to even say it). But one of the coolest things about the ladies from The Pack A.D is that they are animal activist and are also not computer friendly. I can identify since I too love animals and as for computers…not to say that I don’t like computers they just don’t like me (and here is where the Vanmusic crew rolls their eyes!).

Dean Belder who is an exceptional writer/photographer came with me to the Pack A.D show at the Commodore. We were told by security that since we didn’t have proper media passes he was not allowed to take pictures…if we got caught taking pictures Dean’s camera would be taken away. Standard security stuff. We were suppose to get media passes but didn’t unfortunately. So that’s why we don’t have any live shots of the show. Which is a big stinker but hey..some rules suck. More than half the people there were taking pictures with their cell phones anyways! What’s the big deal Mr. Security man?

That was the only shit thing that happened that evening. After the show Dean bought The Pack A.D’s record, I unfortunately could only budget a sticker which was free since I’d spent all my money on beer.