McNasty Brass Band at Crocks at NV in Thunder Bay, 13 October 2018

Crocks had a reputation for feeding the bands it booked. A Northern Ontario tourism profile remembers homemade spaghetti and meatballs for touring musicians at the original building on Cumberland Street South. For a ten-piece brass band on the road, a hot meal before a show matters. Saturday 13 October 2018 was the band’s second night in the city that weekend.

The night ran on the same terms as the Friday. Doors were at 8:30 p.m., the show was 19+ with photo ID required, and Milton Shushack and The Absolute Pleasures, a local group, were named as support. The room was Crocks at 228 Red River Road, and the ticket was C$13 in the promoter’s online shop.

A Saturday in a club town

Saturday is the night a bar room hopes to count on. Two dates back to back suggest the promoter believed the band could carry both, which is a reading of the booking and not something the announcement said. A band with ten people on stage is a gamble on a small market, and this one was taken twice in a single weekend.

The buyer chose a night. Friday and Saturday had separate tickets at the same price, so a keen listener could go twice for C$26, while a casual one could pick whichever suited the week. Nothing in the shop says how many people did either.

The support slot did similar work. Milton Shushack and The Absolute Pleasures were named for the weekend, and a local opener gives a touring band a friendly floor in a city it has visited only once before. The notice gave no running order.

What the band brought

McNasty is made up of horn players and percussionists from Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Its own billing calls the music hard-hitting dance music, built on the Minneapolis sound with the spirit of New Orleans in it. Brass bands from that tradition are made for standing rooms, where the front line can walk into the crowd.

A notice published on 27 September, headlined “McNasty Brass Band Excited to Play in Thunder Bay”, carried a line from a Twin Cities media outlet. The band, it said, was a perfect example of why nobody should make fun of the kid who is super into trumpet in fifth grade.

The joke suits the group. Its members spend much of the year as side musicians for other touring acts, and in McNasty each of them plays out front. That is ten people used to supporting somebody else’s name, sharing one stage with nobody to stand behind.

Cure albums and a kitchen

The same tourism profile calls Crocks a happy accident. One founder wanted to play good Cure albums and his brother always wanted to cook. A record collection and a kitchen explain a good deal about the place: the music came first and the hospitality was personal.

It was a small, human origin for a club that ended up hosting many of the major Canadian acts of its era. The Cumberland Street room closed with a Dear Rouge show on 29 September 2018, and the first night at Red River Road followed on 5 October.

NV Nightclub, which shares the building, kept its weekend dance parties alongside the concerts. The new room was slightly larger and could be set up for big shows or smaller ones, which is useful when the act on stage numbers ten.

The weeks either side

Two other dates sat close by. Dear Rouge had played on 29 September, two weeks earlier, and Ten Foot Pole followed on 26 October, a fortnight after McNasty.

Between them the weekend of 12 and 13 October gave one act two nights in a row. The first night, with the return-visit story and the wider calendar, is on the page for McNasty Brass Band on 12 October.

The C$13 ticket sat at the bottom of a 2018 price range that ran up to C$40. A fan who bought both nights paid C$26, still short of the year’s dearest single ticket.