The discovery of a corduroy road beneath King Street in uptown Waterloo has produced its share of unexpected developments.
It’s brought curious onlookers to the area, taught some lessons about Waterloo Region’s earliest settlers, and possibly delayed construction of the Ion light rail transit line.
It’s also provided a sudden boost to the name recognition of a Guelph-based band.
“Somebody said ‘You guys are called Corduroy Road – wouldn’t it be great if you did a performance there?’” singer Janna Pardy said in an interview.
“So then (we) started tweeting about it, so then people started jumping on the bandwagon.”
Pardy is one of seven members of Corduroy Road.
They all have ties to the Maritimes, where corduroy roads are a little bit more common than they seem to be in southern Ontario.
“Corduroy just kind of has that warm, fuzzy sound to it,” explained band member Andrea LeBlanc.
While many of their shows are in bars and kitchens, they have played at a country music festival in the Peterborough area, and were even shortlisted for a Juno Award.
Their Twitter campaign eventually caught the attention of the City of Waterloo, which hired them to play a show at Waterloo Town Square, near where the road was discovered.
That concert will take place April 29.
