By: Patrick Millar
There was nothing poor about the show Tim Chaisson and the Poor Young Things put on for Algonquin College students Nov. 19 as part of their cross-country tour.
The Poor Young Things took to the stage first. They played a fast-paced and upbeat acoustic rock set for a room of nearly 100 enthusiastic fans. Tim Chaisson took the floor afterwards with a smoother set that had fans clapping along with his soothing country sound.
Both bands are touring together to promote recent releases. Chaisson’s songs were mainly from his new record, The Other Side. The record is his first nationally released album.
His east coast country roots show through in some of his songs on the record; Chaisson’s first EP was mostly fiddle music, and the instrument still plays a major part in many of his songs, including a fiddle solo in the title song of the album.
Poor Young Things played songs from their first EP, Let It Sleep, a forerunner to an album to be released later in 2012.
Poor Young Things lead singer and guitarist Matt Fratpietro said it was a no-brainer to have both Poor Young Things and Tim Chaisson to tour together.
“We like and respect each other’s music, so why go outside the label when we have these two great bands to work with under one umbrella?” said Fratpietro.
Chaisson adds there are a lot of benefits to both bands touring and travelling together.
“One good thing with a band is that everything is consistent every night,” said Chaisson. “That’s awesome because when you’re touring solo and getting set up with different bands, it’s nice to hear different bands every night, but you don’t get into the same rhythm you do when playing every night with the same band.”
Tim Chaisson and his entire group are from P.E.I., where the tour started. The tour went on until the end of November, working its way west, with the last show being in Vancouver.
The members of Poor Young Things met while going to high school in Thunder Bay, Ont. They played in separate bands and in their lead singer/guitarist’s words, “found out they all shared a love of music and wanted to get together.”
“We started playing around Thunder Bay for a while and we got in a bit of a rut doing cover shows,” said Fratpietro. “We decided if we wanted to really make a career out of it, we’d have to move out of Thunder Bay and move to a major city like Toronto or Vancouver. Vancouver was the first choice, but it’s more of a Nickelback-y scene, and we didn’t really want to do that; so we headed for Toronto, got a house, worked our asses off, we played a lot of shows, and I guess we just played for the same people.”
Fratpietro had some parting words for Algonquin students about chasing their dreams.
“I think if you’re really dedicated and really want something, then nothing is going to come easy and you have to work for it, but don’t let people tell you that you can’t do it.”