Deep Dark Woods @ West End Cultural Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba
With Support from Kacy & Clayton
Photos and review courtesy of Jenny Ramone | November 21 2018
The Deep Dark Woods brought their prairie influenced take on Americana music to the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba on November 21, 2018.
The band, lead by smooth velvety voiced Ryan Boldt, showed no sign of being on the tail end of a ten day tour that took them through western Canada via Spokane and Seattle. From the second the Deep Dark Woods took the stage, the audience was held captive by songs of life, death and trying to survive life on the Canadian Prairies. The band was loose and tastefully jammy, bringing to mind notes of Canadian folk legends the Band or Neil Young.
As a live band, the Deep Dark Woods feels very much like a collaborative effort, with each musician showing respect to their band mates during a guitar or organ solo. The band was joined on harmonies by Kacy Anderson, of opening act Kacy & Clayton, whose sweet breathy voice was the perfect compliment to Boldt’s near baritone. Haunting harmonies, mournful lyrics, twangy guitar, and swelling waves of organ wove together to form a blanket of sound to keep the soul warm through a tough Winnipeg winter.
Saskatchewan based folk duo Kacy & Clayton, who happen to list the Deep Dark Woods as one of their musical influences, warmed up the room for the band they had accompanied on the whole tour. With perfect harmonies and easy picking guitar stylings, Kacy & Clayton’s music sounds and feels like it’s from a time and place in the not so distant past, making one nostalgic for a simpler time.
