The Pucks are on the rebound

The Pucks are back from the ice age.
It has been a couple of years since the Prince George band — formerly Soup de Jour — took to the local stage.
“Life got in the way,” said Cindy Larsen, member of the local trio, who is typically seen with a drum under her hands banging out percussion rhythms.
They used to hit the road in a van with their families packed in to follow the summer festival circuits throughout Canada and the States and play their “puck rock.”
Over the years they played at the American Music Festival on July Fourth in Washington, Seattle Northwest Folklife, Vancouver Island Music Festival, opened for the Crash Test Dummies at the Commonwealth Games, at UNBC’s opening ceremonies, and jammed in concert with, among others, Bill Henderson, Ken Hamm, Doug Cox and David Essig.
Years ago they changed their name from Soup de Jour to The Pucks when they discovered six other bands with the same name, including a Grateful Dead cover band. They started to worry about getting each other’s gigs, joked band member Lloyd Larsen.
“The Pucks was on the ‘silly list’ of names we’d come up with, but our old producer Timothy Eaton, loved it because it sounded so Canadian. ‘Puck rock’ is how Canadian music is referred to in the States. It stuck.”
Throughout their 13-year career the band has released two albums — Running With Scissors and Living in a Postcard — and wrote songs like “Rain or Shine” and “Across The River” that still receive regular airplay on CBC.
The journey has been “a blast” and built a legacy of memories for their kids, said Cindy Larsen of more than a decade of music-making with her partners Lloyd Larsen and Murray Gable. But in recent years they’ve slowed down due to family and business obligations.
The Pucks will warm up with their first concert in over three years this Saturday, March 29, at Art Space. The concert begins at 8 p.m. and tickets are $10 and available at Books & Company.