Featured Band: Mount Royal
Mount Royal (or Mt. Royal) is a born and bread Medicine Hat-based band.
Image courtesy of Mt. Royal
The band operates primarily as a quintet, consisting of brothers Robert and Thomas DiNinno, Steve Lind, Ryan Goehring and Dustin Desharnais, but it is not unusual for other members and friends to drift in and out casually, most notably Mike Wallace and Nicole Brunel.
Mount Royal was initially conceived in the early 2000’s, starting out as a high school band by The DiNinno brothers. Since then, they have received much success mainly in the Medicine Hat area and most often play at The Ottoman Lounge. They often attract the majority of the student population of the Medicine Hat Visual Communications cousre to their shows, as The DiNinno brothers both participated in the course. Over the past two summers, Mount Royal has done two cross-Canada tours and in going between the east and west coast, have befriended many musicians along the way, always to return with open arms to their fans in Medicine Hat.
You can easily find out if Mount Royal is playing a show simply by looking around Medicine Hat for the craziest band posters. Extreme colour usages, crazy illustrations and fighting robots are among their intriguing way of advertising shows.
Mount Royal at The Ottoman Lounge
At shows, it is not unusual to see the crowd get into their music, or conversely, to see random people who have not witnessed them before have an awkward look on their face, not being sure what to make of the unique style of music. Such a response, I am sure, would make Mount Royal all the more happier with their performance. As The DiNinno brothers are from the Medicine Hat Visual Communications course, that makes them especially crazy, if not often times labeled as “those crazy art guys”, which so many of us art graduates become known as.
With two cross-Canada tours under their belts, Mount Royal continues to rock the Medicine Hat and lower Alberta music scenes. Shows are relatively inexpensive, usually it is about $5 per person to enter, which gets you access to seeing usually 2-4 bands. Think about it! You can either go to a two hour movie for $10 per person, or for $5 per person, you can witness live creativity in front of your eyes. Check out their MySpace for show times.
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