Come chat up regulars and make new friends. Try out delicious new dishes, and take in our exciting installations by local artists. Eat, listen & celebrate our birthday with us, come early for tantalizing tapas!

Media launch at 4pm
Festivities at 7pm
Flash Lightnin' around 9pm
Tickets $8 at the door

Flash Lightnin' is a Toronto-based power trio whose legend was born in 2007 at the Dakota Tavern, a wood-paneled and raucous basement bar in the heart of the city's Queen West district. With their extraordinary chops and reverent yet contemporary approach to blues-based southern rock and roll, Flash Lightnin's weekly residency at The Dakota quickly became one of the hottest nights in the city. These whiskey-soaked Wednesdays also emerged as an important gathering place for Toronto's musician community, as the band's proficiency and explosive stageshow earned them an overflowing audience that regularly included members of Broken Social Scene, Blue Rodeo, Billy Talent, Feist, and Metric.

Dustin Bentall hails from Vancouver, BC and it seems an unlikely place to nurture such a rustic troubadour. It seemed like an unlikely country for Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel or Neil Young to be from… until people took a closer look. Up here you’ll find as deep a frontier spirit and hard luck charm as any nation. You’ll find a reverence for the tales of everyday life and loss and you’ll find a lot of people who have time to woodshed and learn their craft. Spinning songs by Neil Young, The Band, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Tom T. Hall, The Beatles, Wilco and Steve Earle Dustin found the heart of that music and placed it under his own landscapes.

His father, Barney is approaching legendary status in Canadian rock circles and has let the boy grow up to build his own strengths. He just dropped hints but didn’t crack any whips.

“There’s no question I’ve learned more from him than anyone else in the business. He never pushed the guitar on me but was always there to answer any questions I had, and left the actual learning up to me. I spent a few years wishing he had cracked the whip a little more but I have come to realize that the style I have developed has been a product of my own chosen influences. The old man proved over and over that he can rock with the best of them. I’ve always been really proud of that and hoped that it’s written in my DNA.”

It is part of his DNA. Then there’s the learned part. He sounds older than his years because his songs speak with wisdom about his youthful experiments with immortality.

The narcotic cowboy thing you hear in Dustin’s music comes from his love for Gram Parsons, The Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds with their so-called ‘Cosmic American Music.’ That is, not to mention the time he has spent in the saddle ropin’ and branding steers on the ranch.