Craig Northey — a Port Moody secondary graduate and frontman for Odds — wrote to The Tri-City News this week about his cross-country journey with his band on the CP Rail Holiday Train. The tour ends in Port Moody and Port Coquitlam on Dec. 17:
"Here we Odds are once again heading across this nation on he CP Holiday Train. It's our fifth Holiday Train run and we're often asked why we would want to play 85 shows in three weeks often in sub zero temperatures.
To us it's a no brainer.
It's a chance to focus our karma on the essentials. It's a full immersion in giving. We're suspended in a magical environment while concentrating entirely on helping CP fill local food banks. We ride on a train that includes cars that are as much as 100 years old and we rumble through the back yards and deep woods in places that most folks rarely see. The train beams around the clock with dazzling light as it reflects off snowy mountain valley slopes and bathes the prairie in blues, reds and greens.
At each stop, we see the people who have all come to be uplifted. We see people giving to the person beside them and we watch them sing along to the music together. Thousands of dollars and thousands of pounds of food are donated to the community on the spot and we watch it happen. All he while we're playing and collaborating with the best musicians around — this time, it's country star Dallas Smith. We hit the last note, the door comes up, and we roll on to the next town and do it again.
We're the luckiest band in the world and we'll prove it when we hit the Tri-Cities for the final shows on the 2016 CP Holiday Train. Come out and feel what we feel. Bring the kids to see a truly astounding sight. It charges you up for a whole year."
