Though Hannah Epperson was, as she put it, “surrounded by the detritus” of the bands who would later be taking to the stage, her own setup onstage was relatively minimal. Armed with just her violin and a loop pedal, the barefoot Epperson was accompanied by Steven Foster of Omhouse on additional percussion/electronics and though there was just the two of them, they managed to create a pretty full sound, with the arrangements highlighting Epperson’s somewhat breathy vocals. She described her final song, “The Farthest Distance,” with it’s lyric, “We are the greatest distance apart” as “a fuck you to hashtag culture,” adding that real life is complicated and that you can’t simply end a conversation by adding a hashtag to it.
Taking things in a different direction after Epperson were The Wet Secrets. While Epperson sang about “all of the voices inside of your head” and about human connection, the Edmonton band sang about a different kind of human connection. “This song is about love and hate and knife fights in our hometown,” announced bassist/vocalist Lyle Bell as they launched into “Nightlife,” which mutated into an extended disco-esque jam in it’s latter half. With their horn section, marching band uniforms, and synchronized dance moves on the part of Kim Rackel and Emma Frazier, the band puts on a pretty entertaining show. It’s kind of funny to think that a band who initially started out a kind of a goofy side project has now been around for over a decade, but then again, if they keep putting out songs as catchy as recent single “I Can Swing A Hammer,” it’s not all that surprising.
