By Will McGuirk
Our pals in Birds of Bellwoods are once again playing in Oshawa, each time on bigger stages but this time they are taking to the ice. The pop-folk four-piece have been touring with the Rock The Rink ice skating extravaganza featuring the icing on the cake stars Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Patrick Chan, Kaetlyn Osmond and Elvis Stojko plus others. Thats a lotta star power on skates and the Birds have been providing on-ice accompaniment. The tour began in October in British Columbia and has been skating across Canada. Rock The Rink slides into the Tribute Community Centre Saturday Nov 9 before dipping into Cleveland Nov 10 and then salchowing it back north to Peterborough Nov 13. We flipped some questions to the band.
Slowcity.ca: Happy to see you guys on such a stage. Hard work pays off. What has this experience been like for you as a band and what have you learned as a band about being on stages such as this?
Birds of Bellwoods: “The hard work continues, but there’s no question this tour has been life changing. It took us a while just to process the scope of the audiences we were playing and the level of talent we were touring in support of. The experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Everyone in the cast and crew have been incredibly kind and supportive, we’ve made some true friends and learned a lot.
“In terms of what we’ve learned about stages like this, there’s a lot to unpack because this is a very unique set up. Playing in the round, with ten to twenty feet of ice between you and any audience, it hasn’t been done much before. I’d say the biggest lessons include keeping your eyes up toward the balcony and wearing something sparkly.”
SC: What does this involve for you; are you playing while skaters are on the ice or do you have your own performance - if the former what is the process for such collaborations?
“We perform a set before the skaters take the ice, then join them again part way through the show to perform an acoustic version of our song ‘Let You Go’ while they skate. Choreography was created to our SiriusXM session, and when we got to Abbotsford we were placed on the ice. It was incredible to see how effectively and easily the two parts came together.”
SC: I have to ask about your relationship with the skaters, what have been the most fun experiences and who has been the most fun to hang out with and why?
“We honestly could never choose! All of the skaters are incredible in their own way. We truly have become a happy little touring family. Elvis taught us some Martial Arts breathing techniques, Patrick and Kintaro have an NHL’12 Xbox tournament going in the bus as we write this. We definitely spend a lot of our time with Kaetlyn Osmond and Jeremy Abbott - in fact Jeremy has even started a side project with several of us called Laska Highway - you can find our first song on our Instagram page. It’s very serious stuff.”
SC: Whenever creative people get together new projects and collaborations are forged - Are there plans to work with any or all of the ice stars in the future?
“We sure hope so. Though new to skating at the start of this tour, we absolutely love all of their work and hope to keep these relationships for the rest of our careers. I think we’ve got some pretty crazy opportunities for music videos at the very least. Also. . . Laska Highway forever.”