Elliott Brood live at Crocks in Thunder Bay, 23 February 2015

The core of Work and Love was cut in a farmhouse in Bath, Ontario. The band and the producer Ian Blurton recorded nine songs there in two weeks, and the record came out on 21 October 2014 on Paper Bag Records. By Monday 23 February 2015 it was four months old, and Elliott Brood were carrying it across North America.

The Crocks date had The Wilderness of Manitoba as special guests. Doors opened at eight, the event was 19+ and advance tickets cost $20. H.I.T Management and Loffredo & Associates presented the night.

Three players, one Juno

Elliott Brood formed in Toronto in 2002 and have always been a trio. Mark Sasso sings and plays guitar and banjo. Casey Laforet plays guitar and keys, and Stephen Pitkin handles percussion and sampler. Their albums are Ambassador in 2005, Mountain Meadows in 2008, Days Into Years in 2011 and Work and Love in 2014.

Mountain Meadows was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. Days Into Years won the 2013 Juno for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year: Group, so when they came north in 2015 the band carried a national award for the record before this one.

The band has also spent years as a support act on bigger bills. Wilco, The War on Drugs and The Head and the Heart are among the acts they opened for, and they played the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler and the Sasquatch festival in 2013.

A room the size of Crocks sits at the other end of that scale. At a headlining club show the three of them have the whole evening to themselves, every song of theirs they choose to play.

Back after seventeen months

This was the band’s second listing at the club in this record. The first came on Saturday 14 September 2013 as an early evening concert with doors at seven, followed by the regular Saturday DJ dance party at eleven. Tickets then were $20 in advance too. The 2013 date was built around a club night.

The 2015 show had no such pairing, and nothing on the bill mentioned a dance party afterwards. It was a Monday with doors at eight, and the price had not moved in seventeen months. Only the day of the week and the record had changed.

The opener

The Wilderness of Manitoba formed in Toronto in 2009 and play folk and rock. Their 2014 album, Between Colours, has a guest spot from Alex Lifeson of Rush on a track called “Shift”. Elliott Brood took them out as openers on this run, and the two bands shared the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto on 24 January.

That Toronto date came a month before Thunder Bay. It gives the tour some shape: a home-city show in January, then a long push through the winter, with a Monday in northwestern Ontario near the end of February.

What twenty dollars bought

The $20 advance price matched the 2013 show and sat below the $30 asked for Arkells the following Sunday. Waking Giant Coffee Co. sold tickets, alongside Rainbow on Bay and Extreme Pita, and the club’s own box completed the list. Buyers who did not want a shop could use the promoter’s online store.

Doors opened at eight on a Monday, and no start time for the first act was published. The order of play stayed with the room.

Before and after on the calendar

Six days later the room had Arkells at Crocks at $30 in advance, and on 8 March came Benighted at Crocks, a French band making its first Canadian appearance, at ten dollars on the door. All three shows were announced in the same batch on 6 February.

Set together, the three dates gave the room a Monday of roots music, a Sunday of Ontario rock, and a Sunday of extreme metal in the span of two weeks. Ticket outlets were Rainbow on Bay, Waking Giant Coffee Co., Extreme Pita and the club. More of the season is on the shows page.

The Toronto show in January and this one in February had the same opener, which points to a tour booking, not a local one. The Wilderness of Manitoba were the second band on the bill in both cities.