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CLUTCH, TYLER BRYANT & THE SHAKEDOWN, NATE BERGMAN In Ottawa, Canada By Andrew Depedro, Ottawa Corespondent Friday, June 20, 2025 @ 6:38 AM
That last one is giving me Grade 11 vibes, to be honest, but so was the venue where the Full Ahead Flank tour was making its official landing for a few hours of heavy-set blues rock on a humid Sunday evening.
His entrance music was HATEBREED, his choice of shirt was PIG DESTROYER, and given his musical tastes, it's almost odd to find out that he's got the voice of STURGILL SIMPSON. Yet, esteemed troubadour NATE BERGMAN put on a powerful performance as a one-man band; as the otherwise frontman for Maryland-based hybrid doom/reggae dealers LIONIZE since their inception in 2004, he's more than familiar with commanding a live audience especially with the way that he promised that "we'd fall in love with each other" by the end of his performance as he opened with the anthemic "War On The Working Class". His other songs were also lyrically and socially poignant such as "Highway" but by then, he was also ready to put the acoustic numbers briefly on the shelf as he brought in his backing band comprised of his dream team lineup of... Lars Ulrich on drums, Rory Gallagher on guitar and the quiet-looking bass player from AT THE DRIVE IN? Whoever these mysterious-looking musicians were, they rocked out a solid electrified version of "Apostolos" before Nate reverted back to his acoustic set with "Britnay", "Wish I Was" and "Into My Arms". If his heartfelt ballads hadn't solidified his promise of a genuine love connection between himself and the audience, Nate's admission of his dual American/Canadian citizenship on his father's side eventually would, adding that the prospect of acquiring a Canadian passport overall was "looking mighty tasty" given the current political climate.
https://www.facebook.com/NateBergmanSings
The next band to honor their debt to the blues appear somewhat familiar as the quartet's mop-haired guitarist and frontman, dressed in the most casual of T-shirts and ripped jeans, is sprinting wildly across the stage while effortlessly doling out sharp-sounding southern notes faster than Oprah giving everyone in the audience a new car. That would be Tyler Bryant, frontman, guitarist and namesake - and expectant father in his introduction to his Ottawa fans from the stage following a breakneck performance of opening number b>"Shake You Down" from the latest album Electrified - of Nashville-based blues/rock posse TYLER BRYANT & THE SHAKEDOWN. Indeed, Tyler's rambunctious and wild stage performance is not only familiar in sound and style to many a Rory Gallagher fan, but also familiar as both himself and bassist Diego Navaira had joined Nate Bergman earlier on his performance of "Apostolos". With the remainder of his backing lineup comprised of guitarist Graham Whitford (son of AEROSMITH guitarist Brad Whitford) and drummer Caleb Crosby, Tyler put on a performance that was all about good vibrations. From the clever rhyming of "Born Rockin'", an ode to his musical exposure which effortlessly namedrops and marries "John The Revelator" to "Love In An Elevator", to the lazy rustic groove jam of "Shackles" to a nice extended version of the catchy street-savvy "Sho' Been Worse" to the acoustic-driven "Lipstick Wonder Woman" to the riveting punkish-sounding closer "Drive Me Mad", TYLER BRYANT & THE SHAKEDOWN navigated and tested their newfound O-town audience on their first-ever appearance with swimming results. Clearly, as TBSD are now with six studio albums to their credit as well as guesting on past tours with the likes of B>Jeff Beck, ZZ TOP, GNR, AEROSMITH and LYNYRD SKYNYRD among others, few if any would dare to be messin' with these kids at this point.
http://www.tylerbryantandtheshakedown.com/
"If I had money like Henry Ford/Lord, I'd have me a woman, yeah/On every road"
Where in holy hell were these legendary lyrics present when I was in high school beyond the closing scene of the 1988 video to AEROSMITH's "Rag Doll" when Steve Tyler was driving away from a mysterious residence with several scantily-clad 1980's housewives literally chasing after him? Specifically, about 20 years away or so before that visual was committed to lyric form on the uber-catchy hit "Electric Worry" by the night's headliners CLUTCH. Formed in their hometown of Germantown, Maryland in 1991 aka Grade 11 for me at the same venue back when it was actually Immaculata High School, the quartet were seen as one of the pioneers of stoner/doom metal which itself had been completely overshadowed by the sounds of grunge. It would perhaps explain why I only discovered the band in 2001 during a gloriously chaotic online interview with the Rack on KNAC.COM while promoting their fourth neatly-titled album Pure Rock Fury. It was perhaps the only KNAC.COM interview which left me feeling that I needed to provide a urine sample after listening to it despite not being immediately sold on the band's catchy doom/blues hybrid sound at first. Eventually I gravitated towards the band thanks to frontman Neil Fallon's quick rhymes on "Careful With That Mic", which was seen to be written as an indirect jibe towards LIMP BIZKIT frontman Fred Durst. Fallon's rapping was certainly light years ahead of Fred Durst and most of his cartoonish rap-metal peers when KNAC.COM was spinning the song on regular rotation (as well as finally dropping LIMP BIZKIT from its playlist because they fucking suck), so I gave CLUTCH another chance. Fast forward to 2004 when the West was a whole year into being mired in George W. Bush's Operation Save My Haliburton Stocks-er, War On Terror campaign in the Middle East, and the bluesy head-bopping hard funk of "The Mob Goes Wild" featuring the hilariously encapsulating lyric "Condoleezza Rice is nice/But I prefer A-Roni" as well as the similar anthemic line "Everybody move to Canada/Smoke lots of pot" which seemed to resonate at least continentally for many Canadian fans even to this day, including myself. Safe to say that by the time that "Electric Worry" from 2007's From Beale Street To Oblivion aka CANNED HEAT's "On The Road Again" on crystal meth found itself on heavy rotation on KNAC.COM, I was officially, well, clutched by CLUTCH's intergalactic soundwave.
Shame that it took me until 2025 to finally catch the band's live performance for the first time, but there's finally a review to go with that experience.
To another 30 years of getting satisfaction everywhere you go, gentlemen. I'm just grateful for the street cred and bragging rights from having seen this show.
Setlist:
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Their stage set was modest and even our school uniforms were flashier than their own concert attire, but by the time the heavy-set riffs from guitarist Tim Sult echoed in the intro to "Big News I", CLUTCH gripped the audience hard for the next 90 minutes. With their self-titled sophomore effort having recently turned 30 and the front row being mostly comprised of the same punters who'd caught the band's first Ottawa visit to Barrymore's 21 years earlier, the night's show was particularly dedicated to them. Frontman Neil Fallon appeared to be serenading them during the first 10 minutes of the show as him, Sult, bassist Dan Maines and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster (aka the Lars-looking mystery drummer from Nate Bergman's early yet brief electric all-star performance) followed up with "Animal Farm" before introducing us newbies with solid-sounding renditions of the KNAC.COM staples "The Mob Goes Wild", "Subtle Hustle" and "Pure Rock Fury". Fallon is a man of otherwise few words beyond thanking the fans for their receptive applause and for jokingly introducing the title track of The Elephant Riders from an album "that was released in 1875" but sometimes, limited stage banter also helps with the flow of a live performance. Even without barely moving an inch on the stage throughout the entire show, Tim Sult's focused riffs generate more emotion and feel than any acrobatic-styled guitarist. And while Neil Fallon strapped on a guitar during the aforementioned "Elephant Riders" and "Electric Worry", his own playing rarely outshined his lead guitarist's, with both axemen taking roles in supplementing the harmonica and keyboard solos during the song's encore. And closing with "A Shogun Named Marcus", CLUTCH successfully seized their Ottawa return with a gripping vengeance in a way that even attempting "Careful With That Mic" to end the show just wouldn't be as effective.