Alt-rock band Elliott BROOD has had a tough few days of touring. CBC Music spoke with lead singer Casey Laforet for a first-hand account of the Prairies madness.
It started with a really incredible return to Canada the other day from Minneapolis to Winnipeg. Great set, we all felt good about it, then we went out to the van and the passenger door had been smashed. They stole a bunch of little things. Thankfully everything of value was inside the venue, but it’s always terrible to have that happen. We got to the van and saw all the glass and all the bags had been rooted through. We lost our duty-free liquor and a tablet [laughs]. We were robbed, but we haven’t lost any gear that we really need and we’re insured. It’s OK, but it was pretty crappy to find that, and essentially right in front of the venue, too, which is pretty ballsy of whoever did it.
So that happened, and we were driving through the Prairies with a garbage bag in our window, which is quite loud and cold, and we got just past the town called Yorkton, east of Theodore and the van starting acting up, feeling like there was something wrong with the transmission. We pulled over and it wasn’t working properly and tried to see if we could figure out what was going on. Then some good luck happened. This car pulled over and a woman came over to help us and immediately told us she was a witch and that we should count ourselves pretty lucky that a witch came to help us. So, this witch from Theodore, she pointed at something and said, "That’s the problem!" It was wild. I think she was pretty drunk. But she showed us her pentagrams and her witch stuff, which was kind of odd on the side of the highway.
Then we got split up: two boys had to go back with the van while it got towed back to Yorkton, while the rest of us stayed in this little town and had a Twin Peaks experience. It’s been nuts. We were in this little motel bar that sold liquor and chips and we just had a funny night. We somehow found a rental company that could rent us a van, but obviously it’s a financial disaster, but we’re still going to make the rest of the shows. We had to miss Saskatoon, unfortunately, which is too bad, but we’ll make it up to them.
But we did get to meet a witch. And there were probably a few wizards and elves. I don’t know what they were. It’s kind of a mysterious little couple days. I don’t know if the rock gods are angry or if we didn’t listen to enough Led Zeppelin or something. But we’re back on the road. And we just got great news that Calgary is being hit with a 30-centimetre snowstorm, which we’re driving right into. So, good times. But it’s OK. We’re having a good time. We’re all still high. We bottomed out and we’re coming back.
Related: