There is no shortage of great “horrible show” stories scattered through music history, but seldom does an overwhelming air of pathetic fallacy begin to loom even before any of the bands scheduled to play step foot onstage. That's exactly what happened on the night of Elliott BROOD's show at the Starlight Lounge though, and the procession of events only seemed to get darker by degrees before lightening right up.
The going didn't get worrisome from the moment I walked into the venue for Elliott BROOD's show, it began to get unnerving about two hundred yards up the street from the front door of the bar where everything – street lights, traffic lights, the ornamental fixtures that the city had yet to take down after Christmas – began to appear unnervingly dark. At 8:45 pm (the Starlight's doors were scheduled to open at 9pm), the perfect irony was that the only thing illuminating the street for one city block (other than car headlights) were the stars and, with a creeping sense of unease, I grabbed a parking spot and went in search of my photographer for the night, Mike Good.
I found Mike waiting impatiently outside the venue and got the dark story (or the explanation for the darkness) from him: apparently a less-than-careful driver had spun out up the street, taking out both a lamppost and the transformer affixed to it; that was why the darkness seemed to be confined to such a small area. City crews were already working on the problem and, rather than cancelling the show, the Starlight staff were crossing their fingers that power would be restored and holding off on opening their doors until 10pm. With an hour to kill, my photographer and I walked up the street and grabbed a coffee at the first shop with lights. Fifty minutes after placing our coffee order, the street lights began to glow so we knew we had a show to cover after all.
With the night's hydro-electric difficulty already on the books, there was an unmistakable air of unease inside the Starlight. As people trickled in, the mix of confused, uncertain and excited looks on their faces was pretty even but, when openers Harlan Pepper took the stage, everything about the room seemed to get spontaneously more relaxed and comfortable. Harlan Pepper's loose air and sunny disposition (sort of a mix of The Band and the Brushfire Records roster) went a long way to giving the band a fighting chance at getting over with the crowd, and it was working – until the power went out again about halfway through the band's set.
At that point, some of the crowd's frustration – at having to wait outside for an extra hour for the doors to open and at the hydro remaining out for as long as it had the first time – began to show. Some members of the audience made a break for the door while a few others made a run for the bar in fear that the staff would call it a night. It was then that my photographer announced his exit (hence the rather “stock” nature of the photo attached to this review) , leaving me to sit in the dark. After this second ten-minute “break,” power was once again restored, Harlan Pepper (who cracked a few jokes about their set time) re-took the stage and the (now slightly smaller) crowd reassembled before them.
It might sound odd, but the second power outage did nothing but good things for Harlan Pepper's performance. With the night already off to a rocky start, Harlan Pepper was having difficulty getting a head of steam with their rootsy, sort of hippy-poppy material but, after the second outage, the band seemed to lock step with the situation and amped up their show; singer/guitarist Dan Edmonds poured his soul into the songs which remained in their set list after the outage, while guitarist Jimmy Hayes, bassist Thompson Wilson and drummer Marlon Nicolle tightened up their songs to push them hard and solidly to the audience before they had to hand the stage over to Elliott BROOD. The final two songs of Harlan Pepper's set were the first two which really caught with the audience and the crowd let the band know it; as the openers walked off, they knew that, while it might have been rocky, they had made some ground in the end.
When Elliott BROOD took the stage (a little late, but better late than never), the crowd made sure to let the band know they were happy to see them and, after a short introduction, singer/guitarist Will Sasso, multi-instrumentalist Casey Laforet and drummer Stephen Pitkin repaid their audience's favor in kind.
Right from the beginning of their set, it was clear that Elliott BROOD felt like they had to prove to their audience that they were worth waiting for – and they did it so well and so easily that it was almost surreal. Presenting a set which didn't focus so much on their newest effort, Days Into Years, as pull equally from all three of the group's full-length albums as well as their debut EP, Elliott BROOD knit together a truly captivating performance which cut as dazzling an image as it did a twisted, sordid, dark and ecstatic sound. Through songs including “The Bridge,” “Lindsay,” “If I Get Old,” “Oh Alberta,” “Cadillac Dust” and “Twill,” Sasso simply blasted listeners with his unwavering tenor as well as some wicked wooden acoustic guitar magic in addition to occasionally picking up a ukelele to titillate them. Being backed by Pitkin – who was responsible for much of the drive as well as some of the drama in the mixes (I think he was somehow playing a bit of keyboards as he also tastefully assaulted his drum kit, but I have no idea how he did both at once) – would have made for an energetic show in its own right, but arguably the most hypnotic source of visual and tonal color was multi-instrumentalist Casey Laforet – who proved to be fascinating to watch. Seated at stage left, Laforet was a perpetual motion machine from the first moments of Elliott BROOD's set to its last; cutting out fantastic, fiery and lonesome figures with his Fender Telecaster as well as constantly moving both of his feet back and forth across an enormous and gothic-looking set of Roland bass pedals, he looked more like a machine operator than a musician, but he made some of the most enormous and remarkable sounds. It might sound a little trite because similar things have often been said about other bands on stage, but it's difficult to articulate the size of the sound as well as the fantastic textures of it at an Elliott BROOD show – and that it's all made by three men is unbelievable unless you see it.
As the band's set continued, it built in intensity until peeking with “Write It All Down For You” – over an hour after they started. While the audience had been far from limp to that point, they absolutely lit up and erupted after Sasso's lead-in for the song and ecstatically joined the band for the gang vocals. Invigorated, the band amped up their already high energy just a little more, and the audience began dancing in spite of themselves. The image left by the scene cannot be easily explained (this is one of those moments I wish I'd had a camera); the audience danced and jumped and spun – they seemed to do absolutely anything they could respond to or absorb as much of the sound as possible. It was about as pure and honest a reaction to good music as one was ever likely to see; it was awesome.
After the climax of “Write It All Down For You,” Elliott BROOD had a few songs left in their set which they worked through (and did not phone in), and the audience continued to take it in, but the energy was more afterglow than activity. That isn't meant to sound like it was simply an extended denouement, it was simply that the reaction to “Write It All Down For You” was tremendous – absolutely a great moment that the audience needed to see after the tenuous beginnings of the night. As the crowd made their way out of the Starlight, the consistent look on faces was one of satisfaction; it might have started dark, but Elliott BROOD lit people up in Waterloo, and turned what could very easily have been a horrible show into an unforgettable one.
Artist:
www.elliottbrood.ca/
www.myspace.com/elliottbrood
www.facebook.com/ElliottBROOD
www.twitter.com/elliottbrood
Tour:
Elliott BROOD has a few more dates scheduled around Ontario and Quebec before embarking on a tour of the United States in February and March supporting their third album, Days Into Years. Click here for a complete list of shows.
