As a die-hard sports fan, I’m often disappointed by the musical selection at sporting events. For every time that a stadium DJ might play “Run to the Hills” or “Hit the Lights,” there are at least a couple hundred renditions of “Don’t Stop Believing,” “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” “Blitzkrieg Bop” and whatever Nickelback’s latest single happens to be at the moment. I can’t remember the last time any of these songs actually fired me up. And when a football player’s idea of a metal band is Free Reign, well, let’s just say that I was starting to believe that good music and the gridiron don’t mix. But that was before I became tuned in to the greatness of Vince Lombarrdi. No, that’s not a typo, I meant to put two r’s. There’s also an umlaut on the o, if I could figure out how to do one of those…
The Vince with two r’s is a Toronto-based band of Humber College music grads that includes members of Godstopper, Blood Ceremony and The Great Collapse. But that’s not to say this is some crazy death-doom outfit–think Spinal Tap with shoulder pads. In fact, when they took the stage at the Tranzac the other nite, each band member was playing bass. Talk about bum cakes…
Lombarrdi’s live performance is centred around their GameFace album, which tells the tale of a high school loser who tries desperately to impress his over-demanding coach and finally make the football team, with odes to the school janitor and NBA Jam thrown in for good measure, and cameo appearances by Abe Lincoln and the ghost of Charles Barkley. This send-up on stadium rock also contains hints of crossover thrash, nu-metal and plenty of vocoder. Did I mention that they do a doom-metal version of the Cheers theme song and a mullet-raising rendition of “Here I Go Again?”
Hey, I’ll take Whitesnake over Journey any day…
Download Vince Lombarrdi’s GameFace for free here.
Peace,
Greg
P.S.: Like what you read? Follow me on Twitter and check out my blog!
P.P.S.: My new radio show, Gruesome Tunes, airs Sunday nites from 6 till 8 (Eastern Time) on Grip of Delusion Radio. Tune in and drop out!
