Ducks Ltd. may hail from Toronto, but at this point they’re honorary Chicagoans. Having recorded their most recent LP Harm’s Way in the city with the assistance of The Hecks’ Dave Vettraino, Finom’s Macie Stewart, Dehd’s Jason Balla, Ratboys’ Julia Steiner, and Stuck’s Greg Obis, it’s as much a love letter to Chicago’s music scene as it is one to the bygone eras of C86, the Dunedin sound, and any other international pockets the current jangle-pop renaissance has been pulling from.
Naturally, they opted to share the stage with Chicagoans for a leg of their spring US tour, with Ratboys continuing to promote last year’s The Window on the stages they shared. With the bands since heading their own separate ways since wrapping up that string of 14 dates, we asked Ducks to grant us permission to their camera roll for a behind the scenes look at all the gigs, solar eclipses, and sandwiches that they’ll never forget.
Jonathan and Julia make friends with a cat in Asheville
A session at WNRN in Richmond
Smoke break in Baltimore
Jonathan loading out in Baltimore
Julia looms over the green room in Portland, Maine
The show in Portland (Tom and Jonathan had just eaten lobster rolls!)
A shot from the green room balcony in Burlington
Eating some excellent sandwiches at a sandwich shop that was also a print shop and also a limo company dispatcher in Rome, NY
The tour went through the path of totality on the day of the eclipse. It was kind of overcast, so in this one we’re pretending to be impressed by the cosmic ballet!
More eclipse day!
Tom and Jonathan somewhere, possibly Ann Arbor
Sean behind the camera in Bloomington
Evan and the Bloomington marquee!
The last show in Madison
Group pic with our beloved Rats, who we will see again soon!
