The Rock the Shores stage was set up on the Juan de Fuca recreation grounds on Friday night and sound checks were held off and on during the evening.
Next door, at Bear Mountain Arena, it was the Victoria Shamrocks who needed to step up to the microphone in a statement game against the visiting Langley Thunder.
The hosts to do so, coming out as flat as Roseanne Barr during her national anthem fiasco of 1990. It was an eerily similar shriek, sans the crotch grab and spit that Barr threw in for good measure to the baseball crowd that fateful day.
Victoria ended up on the short end of an 11-6 score and have now lost two straight games for the first time this Western Lacrosse Association season, not to mention three of their last four.
It came on alumni night as a huge crowd of 2,213 witnessed the disastrous result.
The Thunder take over sole possession of first place with 20 points at 9-3-2, while Victoria slinks to 9-6. To make matters worse, Burnaby is just two points behind as the Lakers defeated Coquitlam on Friday.
鈥淥ur offence is struggling,鈥� said frustrated Shamrocks general manager Chris Welch. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 expect to score off transition all the time. We need to score 5-on-5.鈥�
Langley opened up a 2-1 lead after the opening 20 minutes. Tory Gardner started it off for Victoria after jumping out of the penalty box and beating Brodie MacDonald 6:28 in. But Shayne Jackson and Dan McQuade replied at 7:54 and 9:12 respectively, even though the 鈥橰ocks out-shot the visitors 15-11.
The teams traded a pair of quick goals each early in the second with Corey Small and Derek Lowe giving the Shamrocks a short-lived 3-2 lead only to see Jackson and Damon Edwards tally 1:02 apart to secure a 4-3 advantage.
Langley walked off the floor with a 7-4 lead after 40 minutes and it didn鈥檛 get any better in the third.
McQuade, Jackson and Kyle Belton had two goals each for Langley while Adam Jones, Dane Dobbie, Athan Iannucci and Trent Hawke also tallied.
Small and Jones finished with two each for the Shamrocks.
Meanwhile, the Thunder are rolling as vice-president and GM Rob Buchan鈥檚 moves to acquire Mark Matthews, Jones and Jeremy Noble (who hasn鈥檛 played yet) on transfers and Dobbie, Edmonds and goaltender Nick Rose from Coquitlam at the trade deadline, have paid off.
Matt Vinc was back in the Victoria net after Matt Flindell suffered the 13-12 loss the night previous in New Westminster.
The Shamrocks are back home Friday against New Westminster.
