Live And In The Flesh
The Odds - November 27, 2010
Every year around Christmas time, the CP Rail Holiday Train rolls through town all decked out with hundreds of thousands of lights and Christmas cheer. This year, the Odds had been recruited to perform at several stops along the train’s cross-Canada journey which traveled to more than 140 communities in six Canadian provinces. Smiths Falls was one of the few towns where the band would actually get off of the train to play their set, as opposed to playing directly from within one of the railcars. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever expected to be checking out a show down at The Lee Tavern in Smiths Falls! Since the bar was only a few blocks from home I was able to make my way over on foot, the only show that I can say I’ve been lucky enough to do that. Certainly a bit of a change compared to the typical two-three hour drive we normally would embark on heading to one of our more usual concert halls. Needless to say, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check out the show so close to home. They had some pretty decent jams from what I could recall from my early teenage years, so why not check them out!
A few of us made our way over and noticed the band had already begun by the time we made it in. We didn’t miss much of their set, and The Lee was probably experiencing one of its busiest night’s I’ve ever encountered. The lineup at the bar was non-stop and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves while the Odds were busy wailing away in the corner of the bar. The Smiths Falls crowd was certainly a bit different than the typical concert crowd that I was used to throughout the years. There was a good mix of young and old familiar faces throughout the crowd, something you just don't experience in a big city venue. Thankfully everyone in attendance was there for a good time, making the most of a very rare performance in town.
The Odds even seemed to be making the most of the small town show. Interacting with the crowd whenever they could, and encouraging everyone else to sing along. I could only imagine the small town crowd’s that they were able to entertain throughout their CP Holiday Train Tour of 2010. I didn’t realize just how many great jams the Odds had until we were well into their live set. It seemed like I had heard every single track at one point or another on the radio over the years. They busted through their classics like It Falls Apart, Make You Mad, Eat My Brain, Heterosexual Man, Truth Untold, and of course wrapping their set up with one of their most notable tracks - Someone Who’s Cool.
After the show was all said and done I couldn’t believe that these guys had just played The Lee Tavern of all places. For one of my first shows in Smiths Falls, this one had definitely turned out better than expected. Everyone in the crowd loved it, the band enjoyed it, and you couldn’t have asked for a better atmosphere for a concert. The 2010 CP Holiday Train helped raise over 150 thousand pounds of food for the local communities that they had stopped in to visit along the way. Everything that was raised in each community remained in that community for local distribution, along with any cash that was also raised along the way. Within the first eleven years of the Holiday Train campaign, they have raised well over $4.8 million dollars and 2.3 million pounds of food! Hard to believe it can be any more of a success than it already is, but here’s to breaking more records in the future with the CP Holiday Train!