Any concert put on by Ottawa-based band Hollerado is always a party.
Their concert this past Sept. 26 was no exception; stagehands would frequently run on stage to blast the crowd with confetti bombs, lead singer Menno Versteeg climbed up on the speakers and there was a foam machine running intermittently.
Given the personalities in the band, this isn’t surprising at all.
Hollerado formed in early 2007 with most of the band members growing up on the same street in Manotick, a small suburb of Ontario.
“We just wanted to do something in our empty garages. We decided the best thing to do in our garages would be to play music,” Nick Boyd, guitarist and vocalist, quips about their beginnings.
Hollerado isn’t one to take themselves—or anything—seriously. Just take the origin of the band name, Hollerado.
“It came from the English alphabet. That’s what we used to synthesize [the name]. The “L” is doubled,” said drummer Jake Boyd to The Cord.
“There are a number of vowels and consonants,” Versteeg continued. “We wanted a good balance of both.”
“I’ve always been a big fan of ‘L’s’, my brother’s name is Luke … I don’t have any ‘L’s’ in my name … [we suffer from] ‘L’ envy,” said Dean Baxter, bassist and vocals, branching off of Jake Boyd’s comment.
While they do run into problems with the occasional Spanish fan who cannot pronounce the double “L” in Hollerado, they generally enjoy a very successful career.
The band was nominated for a Juno award in 2011, though it is a bit of a sore subject for them.
“Our friends call us Juno losers,” Nick Boyd sadly recounted.
“It’s like almost getting nachos. [Everyone asks us] ‘aren’t you so glad you got the nachos?’ Eh, I almost got it. But I didn’t eat them so I don’t know how they were,” joked Baxter.
Despite this, Hollerado put on a very strong performance on Thursday. In their short five years together, they managed to perfect the act of sounding the exact same playing live as they do on record.
The atmosphere felt as though the audience had entered a giant party—strobe lights were heavily used and, at one part, a large foam machine sprayed out into the audience and happened to hit one unfortunate concert goer in the face.
Hollerado had a lot of little touches like these that showed up throughout the night. For example, in honour of their latest album, White Paint, the band painted all of their instruments white.
Hollerado’s indie-pop sound was well-received by the large audience who rocked on all night.