They've been calling themselves Whitehorse's "youngest old-person band," but for the first part of their set, it seemed only toddlers were interested in Brass Knuckle Society's old-timey tunes. Before long there was a small crowd dancing off their dinner as the band played "Barge Dance," which trumpeter Jesse Whitehead introduced as coming from "the delicate ballet of being stuck in traffic." Who knew Whitehorse has traffic jams?
Although repetitive and at times too slow, songs like "Day Job Dues," and "Bella Ciao" took the audience on a musical journey from dreary working days in Whitehorse to losing love on the streets of Italy. Their last song, Whitehead explained, was an ode to a cat that had died. (This didn't exactly excite the audience.) Dancers were sceptical at first, moving slowly and awkwardly to the lumbering intro, but loosened as the song did and eventually moved with the pace of the music, which did eventually pick up from its crawl. The show made a jazzy carefree soundtrack for an all-ages after-dinner dance and the band's old-fashioned outfits and freewheeling sax felt right at home in a town so fixated on another time.
Although repetitive and at times too slow, songs like "Day Job Dues," and "Bella Ciao" took the audience on a musical journey from dreary working days in Whitehorse to losing love on the streets of Italy. Their last song, Whitehead explained, was an ode to a cat that had died. (This didn't exactly excite the audience.) Dancers were sceptical at first, moving slowly and awkwardly to the lumbering intro, but loosened as the song did and eventually moved with the pace of the music, which did eventually pick up from its crawl. The show made a jazzy carefree soundtrack for an all-ages after-dinner dance and the band's old-fashioned outfits and freewheeling sax felt right at home in a town so fixated on another time.
