Tupelo Honey will be changing up its sound for a show on Oct. 17 at Tracks Pub.
Normally, the Edmonton-based band's sound features heavily-amplified guitars, loud drums and more of a “stadium rock” sound, said front-man Dan Davidson. But the band has decided to take an acoustic approach for the Olds show. The band has been together for 10 years, touring with big-name bands and getting airplay on MuchMusic. Tupelo Honey will release its fifth album near the end of the year, along with an accompanying video Halo that was shot in Canmore.
“A little while ago we ended up doing a whole bunch of acoustic stuff on a radio tour and we got a chance to really mess around with, like, styles, the arrangements and the rotation of the songs, so now we have some songs that are in different tuning that we're trying to play with two acoustic guitars rather than electric guitars,” he said.
The band took the song Hold me closer, which it normally plays as a heavy rock song and changed it, through acoustic guitars, into a southern blues song.
“We get to just have some fun and show our fans the other side of us,” Davidson said.
The band will also be mixing in a few songs from the new album. Although the sound of the album won't deviate from Tupelo Honey's signature sound, the group will play the songs at Tracks Pub acoustically. Davison described the album as U2 delivered with a Foo Fighters-like sound.
“We're really excited about (the album). We've already shot two high-budget music videos and we've got a lot of marketing money behind it, so we wanted to give them a little road test with this acoustic show,” Davidson said.
It makes a lot of sense to play Tracks Pub acoustically, he added, because the tight confines of the bar are a too small to have a plugged in show. He said the band wants to experiment a bit with a few shows to get the word out to fans in smaller markets before going on a larger tour again.
“The opportunity was presented to us to play acoustically and since we've been practicing a little bit for other shows, we thought it would be a great chance to come down and play a place that we've never really been to … and (while) we can't do the full-rock show, it gives us a chance to give them something special that our fans don't normally get to have,” he said.
Tupelo Honey last released an album in 2011. It featured both plugged-in songs and acoustic music.
The band will take the stage at about 9 p.m.
