Dear Rouge live at Crocks in Thunder Bay, 29 September 2018

The two VIP packages for Dear Rouge in Thunder Bay were named Phase One and Phase Two, after the album the duo was touring. Phase One listed a ticket, a tour T-shirt and a hi-res download of Phases, priced at 17.5. Phase Two, at 37.5, added a VIP laminate, a pre-signed tour poster, a custom bag and unreleased demos and B-sides.

The base ticket for Saturday, 29 September 2018 was C$25. The packages sat under the heading VIP Package Add-ons, and no currency was printed beside their figures.

Both packages list a ticket among their contents, so it is unclear whether 17.5 and 37.5 are extras on top of the C$25 or replace it. The shop’s entry for the night dates from 12 August, seven weeks ahead.

The duo

Dear Rouge is a Vancouver band formed in 2012 by Drew and Danielle McTaggart, who are married. Both had toured with other projects before they met. Danielle grew up in Red Deer, Alberta, and the name comes from that town, with “dear” standing in for the first word and “rouge” as the French for red.

They won the Juno Award for Breakthrough Group of the Year on 2 April 2016. Their first album, Black to Gold, came out on 30 March 2015. Early singles included “I Heard I Had”, from October 2013, and “Best Look Lately”, from April 2014.

The album behind the tour

Phases, the second album, was released on 9 March 2018 through Universal Music Canada. It includes the earlier singles “Boys & Blondes” and “Modern Shakedown” and features collaborators such as Dan Mangan, Steve Bays of Hot Hot Heat, Ryan Worsley and Sterling Fox. The McTaggarts described it as a record about the many phases of life, from beauty and excitement to pain and insecurity.

“Boys & Blondes”, released in October 2017, reached number six on Canadian radio and landed on Spotify’s New Music Now and Indie Pop playlists as well as Apple Music’s Best of the Week. “Live Through the Night” later became the duo’s first chart-topper on Canadian alternative rock charts, in August 2018, weeks before this show.

The road to Crocks

Before the headlining tour, the duo spent spring 2018 opening for the Canadian artist LIGHTS in cities from Seattle to Ottawa, and played Ottawa Bluesfest in July. The headlining run for the record began in Saskatoon in September and ended in Seattle in mid-November. Thunder Bay’s date fell inside that run.

A Saturday at the end of September suits a band that had spent the summer on festival stages and was now selling its own rooms. The step from support slot to top of the bill is the story of that year for them.

Two nights after a folk band

Great Lake Swimmers had played the room two days earlier, so the weekend began with a quieter night and ended with a louder one. The Great Lake Swimmers entry has that Thursday, and Elliott Brood came nine days before this. All three carried the same C$25 price.

That is a lot of Canadian bands with new records in one fortnight. Nothing suggests the bookings were coordinated, though the shop posted the dates on the same day, 12 August. A small city on a long highway may simply get its touring bands in clumps, when the routing allows.

What the packages say

A bundle of merchandise priced next to the ticket shows what the promoter expected of the crowd: fans who would want a poster with a signature on it, and a bag to carry into the next show. That is a reading of the listing, since nothing says how many were sold.

The demos and B-sides in the top package are the interesting part. They were unreleased, so a buyer got songs no streaming service carried. For a duo six years in, the offer made a crowd into collectors before the tour left town.

After this night, the next names on record at the room are the McNasty Brass Band, on 12 and 13 October.