Coldsnap Music Festival, presented by the Prince George Folkfest Society, invites audiences to come in from the cold and generate a little heat with the Boom Booms during the Prince George Block Party Friday, Jan. 24, 7:30 p.m. at the Ramada Ballroom, with special guests Dear Rouge.
Vancouver based, this six-piece band gathered together as tree-planting buddies trying to entertain themselves during those times they spent enjoying the great outdoors.
To keep the sound going, the Boom Booms developed their summer block party, a highlight of the season for East Vancouverites and took their sound on tour around the world.
The Boom Booms were finalists in the 2011 Peak Performance Project, created by 102.7 The PEAK and Music BC, where emerging artists from throughout B.C. compete for the 20 top spots for a week-long training program to develop their music, marketing and promotion. The lucky few then move on for cash prizes for the top five groups. The Boom Booms took the second prize of $75,000 they used for a trip to Brazil where they toured and made an online music and travel documentary called Boom Boom Brazil.
The Boom Booms are Aaron Ross, lead vocals/guitar, Geordie Hart, bass/vocals, Sean Ross, vocals/cavaquinho, Tom Van Deursen, electric guitar/vocals, Theo Vincent, percussion/vocals, Richard Brinkman, drums.
"We're stoked to come to Prince George," said Ross, who is used to more mild Vancouver weather but knows to prepare for the cold. "We're like tourists in our own province. Prince George gets a special mention from us because our first paid gig was at a tree planting camp in Prince George. We played seven hours on a flatbed truck."
The band is known for their high energy show.
"You can expect a good time when you come to the show," said Ross. "We'll play some material from our album Hot Rum!, which is more of our world influence, groove stuff and some of our new material, which is leaning more towards backbeat, soul, groovy stuff."
Ross said it wasn't a conscious choice to move toward soul.
"We all listened to a lot of soul music growing up -- listened to Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, and the other stuff is just a product of the fact that we were traveling the world a lot and now that we're back at home the soul feeling is the one that we're gravitating towards. There will be a lot of variety in the show."
Tickets are on sale at Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave., Studio 2880, 2880-15th Ave., or online at
http://www.coldsnapfestival.com/tickets/.
