Fans began arriving at 7 p.m. and the concert began only a few minutes past its scheduled 7:30 p.m. start time.
To the average person, all was going according to plan.
What those concertgoers didn’t know is sound check ended mere moments before the doors opened, as the band Odds, best known for its string of radio hits in the 1990s, arrived late to Airdrie’s Bert Church Theatre on March 24.
Craig Northey, Doug Elliott, Pat Stewart and Murray Atkinson, had a gig in Kamloops the night before, and faced a 650-kilometre drive. During the eight-hour trek through the Selkirk and Rocky Mountain ranges, they were delayed due to a major accident near Rogers Pass on Highway 1.
“It’s Revelstoke to Golden that scuppers most of your plans, as people here probably know,” said Northey, the group’s primary vocalist and one of its co-founders. “We came across just before a fatality, so we had to wait. But they did let our group through.”
“Did you just say ‘scuppers’?” interjected bassist Elliott, while enjoying some of the various instruments scattered around the band room at Bert Church High School after Odds opened for The Grapes Of Wrath.
“I love that word.”
This comic banter between bandmates is part of the reason for its success, longevity and highly entertaining live shows.
“I told you not to let that stuff leak,” said drummer Stewart, who joined the band, whose hits include Someone Who’s Cool, Heterosexual Man, Truth Untold and Eat My Brain, in 1995.
“I think every band is the same way we are, but we can’t shut ourselves off when we hit the stage,” said Northey. “We’ve been criticized in the past for our inability to take ourselves too seriously. But we are not fans of all the people who take themselves too seriously.”
Northey and Elliott, who formed the original band with Steven Drake and Pat Brennan in Vancouver 25 years ago, have been playing together in some form for the entire stretch of time. Brennan and Drake both departed during the group’s prominence in the mid-90s.
Atkinson was added in 2007 when Odds ended its hiatus, which began in 1999.
The show in Airdrie was part of a mini-tour in advance of a new album, as well as Odds’ upcoming stint, for the third consecutive year, as the house band at Rogers Arena for Vancouver Canucks home playoff games.
The group also recorded its 75-minute set at Bert Church with Calgary-based recording engineer Paul Chirka. Northey said the band will soon release it in some form, likely as a digital download on its website.
“I think this is the modern age where you always need to have content,” he said. “It’s the Internet and everyone is their own record company in a way; they’re their own mediator of what gets out there. And we’re always looking to have more stuff we’ve done that we can share with people.”
Members of Odds said playing a smaller venue, such as the 377-seat Bert Church Theatre, is great for them as it allows and an intimate and immediate reaction from its fans.
“It’s inspiring,” Stewart said. “The band really feeds off of that type of engagement from the audience. This room sounded great tonight.”
“All venues come at you a different way in the reactions, but the immediate stuff is stuff for us to feed on,” Northey said. “Sometimes at a festival, you feel the obligation to keep it short, keep it rocking and talk very little. But here, in a small venue, someone could yell out something, and everybody hears it – and it becomes part of the theme of the show.”
Another theme for its Airdrie concert involved a return to the group’s roots as a travelling band, full of unforeseen adventure. Northey said although Odds started out in similar fashion back in the late ‘80s, he prefers having an easier time of getting from show to show.
“We’d rather it was uneventful and you’d get there on time – that would be better,” he said.
“Nowadays, you show up at the airport, or show up to meet the van, with maybe six hours sleep – and that’s the start of the tour,” Stewart said. “So you go into it already burnt, kind of like tonight. Luckily, we know how to play our songs.”
