Ferdy Belland's Birthday Bash at the Railway March 29, 2008

Come join Dirty Ferdy Belland at Vancouver's best live club venue to celebrate 37 years of masculine perfection, youthful energy, stubborn dedication to lost causes, and high-octane rock and roll!

Nine of Vancouver's coolest indie bands rock the stage:

DAVID GANNETT - heartfelt roots rock in the fine tradition of Prine, Springsteen, Mellencamp, Fogerty et all. Clever, memorable songs played by clever, memorable guys.

THE GENTLE INFIDELS - Ed Bond's mournful yet gripping paeans are given Zeppelinesque delivery through self-constructed open-tuned acoustic guitars, Slavic cello, and fretless bass (courtesy of Belland himself, who's cunningly planted the Infidels early in the night so he doesn't have to play shitfaced).

PORTICO - Arty, angular co-ed power trio whose latest album "Progeny Blues" (Copperspine Records) is one of the finest Vancouver indie releases of 2007.

ARCTIC - Combine one Marcus Martin with an acoustic guitar, some King Crimsonesque effects pedals, a highly imaginative (and highly attractive) rhythm section, and an affinity for excellently-executed minor-scale broodings and what do you get? Arctic. And then some!

BAD MOVES - The new band helmed by self-proclaimed "loser drummer" Jon Lundgren (don't believe that self-deprecating horseshit), formerly of Locator, formerly of the Magnetic People, formerly of Kelowna, presently adding strong presence to the Vancouver indie-rock community.

CATLOW - Melodic, punchy power-pop courtesy of the lovely Natasha and her plucky rocknroll compatriots.

THE PARLOUR STEPS - Vancouver's next Big Breakout Band. Power pop supreme, with thoughtful introspective lyrics one might expect from David Byrne, except they're instead coming from singer-guitarist Caleb Stull. If you don't own their last two albums, you need to rectify said situation immediately.

SCATTERHEART - Take a Perry Farrell lookalike and clad him in angel wings. With me so far? Now add the Furicane on lead guitar, Thumpasaurus Rex on drums, and Wes Is More on bass, add dance contests, snappy hard rock songs about shutting up, and the best cover of Rush's "Closer To the Heart," and you'll begin to understand the artsy party atmosphere which is Scatterheart.

THE ORCHID HIGHWAY - Belland couldn't get his time machine out of the shop in time, so the next best thing is to get the Orchid Highway to time travel us all back to a Brit-Mod rocknroll world circa 1966, where so much was so much better. The Macdonald brothers seem to think so, anyway.

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of arctic.