Elliott Brood steps up for the Avening Hall
The first time Toronto rockers Elliott Brood played the Avening Hall, in March 2010, they pulled into the parking lot with a slight feeling of trepidation.
Part of it was the location – “It feels pretty far away from everywhere,” said Casey Laforet, the band’s guitarist – and part of it was, let’s say, the general appearance of the place.
When they walked inside and saw the character of the room, the wood-clad ceiling and matching wood floor, they felt a little better. When they plugged in for sound check, and heard the way music reverberates among all that wood, they felt a little better still.
But it was what happened next that sold them on the place. “It was like in that movie Roadhouse,” remembered Laforet. “All of a sudden, all these headlights just started making their way up the road and turning into the parking lot.”
The night was a sell-out, and the show that Elliott Brood put on was a perfect fit for the hall and the crowd that comes out for concerts there.
Described as anything from “death country” to “frontier rock” to “revival stomp,” Elliott Brood’s music is a little different than most of what’s out there. Drummer Stephen Pitkin keeps the beat, though he’s more often than not joined by the sound of the audience’s feet thumping along. Occasionally, the band hands out pots and pans to the crowd to add to the rhythm. Laforet spends most of his time sitting, switching between a beat-up acoustic and a cranked up Telecaster, feet dancing across an array of pedals laid out before him. Mark Sasso plays the frontman role, strumming a banjo and singing in a raspy voice about old wars, dusty travels and prairie serenades.
Elliott Brood were so impressed with the Avening Hall that first night that they decided they had to record there. Later that year, they moved into the hall for a week, camping out, laying down tracks during the day, cooking meals in the kitchen behind the stage and bowling a few lanes in the downstairs alley whenever they needed a break. The natural reverb provided by all that wood can be heard on several songs on their Juno-nominated 2011 album Days Into Years.
These days, as anyone who reads this paper knows, the Avening Hall board is facing an uphill climb, needing to come up with $35,000 to match Clearview Township’s contribution toward needed upgrades. When board member and longtime Avening Hall concert promoter Sara Hershoff put the word out for a band that might help kick off the fundraising campaign, the boys in Elliott Brood were quick to offer their services.
“We had no trouble saying yes,” said Laforet. “We’ve played a lot of small places and a lot of big places across Canada, the United States and Europe, and I can honestly say, that hall is one of the gems. It would be a shame to see it disappear.”
Elliott Brood is so enamoured with the hall, in fact, that instead of asking for their usual price for playing the show, they’re going to take a reduced rate along with – you guessed it – more rental time. The band is just getting back to work on a new album after a year and a half of touring Days Into Years, and if all goes well, that Avening Hall wood will be a feature on the next record as well.
“It’s all about the wood,” said Laforet. “All that great wood.”
Tickets for Elliott Brood at the Avening Hall on Saturday, April 27 cost $25 in advance and are available at ticketscene.ca and the Creemore Echo. Tickets will be $30 at the door.
Here’s a video of Elliott Brood at the Avening Hall, covering the White Stripes on that March evening in 2010:
