If you book them they will come. Well that depends on the band. Some bands are guaranteed draws in Lethbridge, others are a crapshoot.
Hamilton trio Elliott Brood are in the former category even on a Tuesday night at the Slice, Sept. 25.
I expected the show to start at 8:30 and the crowd was already starting to trickle in for what ended up being a sold out concert which didn’t start until well after 9 p.m. when opening act Steve Foord took the stage, turned off pretty much all the lights in the house and howled his original, spooky, dark country music, accompanying himself on mandolin, guitar and suitcase percussion. I had heard most of his songs before including his cover of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.” but it has been while.
The lights went back up as Elliott Brood’s singer, guitarist, banjo player and ukulele player Mark Sasso observed they love playing Lethbridge and the sold out audience returned that love to them.
Most of them were up dancing in front of the stage from the first song on. Casey Laforet and Sasso took turns singing lead vocals in a similar gritted teeth Neil Youngish growl, while switching between guitars, banjo and ukulele for the last couple songs. Stephen Pitkin held down a massive rhythm on drums.
As always the trio put on a compelling show. They included brand new songs, songs from their most recent CD “Ghost Gardens,” and some older songs like “Coming Home,” which had most of the audience singing along.
They dedicated an older song “Rock and Roll to former Slice owner Jesse Freed.
Some of their more mellower, impassioned numbers reminded me of Leeroy Stagger.
They introduced a new song “Don’t Want to Go No More.”
They are always a lot of fun and funny. Sasso played kazoo with an extended bell horn for one song.
They wound up their official show just before midnight with Sasso and Laforet breaking out the ukuleles for a couple of older crowd favourites, but were called back for an encore of a couple other old favourites including “I Miss You Now,” which lasted past that.
