Yes, our headline is very cheesy, but there’s so much to love about Ottawa biggest musical success story right now- Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine. As we all know, earlier this year they appeared on CTV’s The Launch and won with their rendition of Ain’t Easy, and the rest is history.
I was first introduced to Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine almost a year ago. I was riding in a car with Brian Tong, who has a reputation for knowing what’s hot in Ottawa. He played me some music from local artists who were killing it on Soundcloud yet flying under the radar and one of those acts was Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine. Fast forward to almost six months later and they were doing their thing on national television.
Unlike other local acts, Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine have a national platform and it was reflected in the size of the crowd. They were the only local act that we saw on the City Stage, the big stage, and they had the biggest audience of any Ottawa act I’d seen.
After getting through their first song they performed Catching Feels, their biggest song other than Ain’t Easy, at least according to streams. Out of all their songs I’d never heard before, I really liked Serenade which has a bit of a Latin vibe. Jamie Fine was smiling cheek to cheek during this song as she danced across the stage.
At one point they had to warn parents to cover their kids ears as they went into a song for the grown folks that talked about coming into bed and taking clothes off. I actually considered bringing my five year-old son so I’m glad I avoided an awkward conversation about the birds and the bees.
They then went into Wouldn’t Be Enough and 8:48 before performing Nines. What got my attention, aside from them throwing in TLC’s No Scrubs, was that the people around me knew the words to this song. It was a bit of a surreal moment- an Ottawa act on the City stage with people singing the words to one of their songs, and a lesser known one at that. I thought to myself, “These guys, from Ottawa, really have a fanbase, and a local fanbase”. How inspirational was it for local people to see two people, who grew up where they grew up, on stage and achieving national success in the industry?
Then the main attraction- their hit Ain’t Easy. I thought they would’ve ended their show with this song, but oh well. Watching Jamie Fine dance to this song was golden. She’s smooth. I jokingly thought to myself, “She’s white, but she moves like a ‘sister’.”
They closed with the Major Lazer & DJ Snake song Lean On, which had the crowd singing along. The song fit their style and voice like a glove. If I hadn’t heard it before I’d think it was their song.
But overall, they put on a good show. If you watched The Launch you already know Jamie Fine is an amazing performer. Everyone on the show had pretty good stage presence, but Jamie Fine really stood out to me. Obviously, aside from her powerful yet controlled voice, what makes her a great performer is the details- pointing to the photographers and posing for pictures, dancing in between singing, playing a little air guitar, and waving at the crowd. I know they’re not an overnight success, but they have impressive stage presence given the amount of time they’ve been in the game. From the moment they walked onto the stage they had that vibe to them; like “we do this and we’ve been doing this.”
Elijah Woods was no slouch either. Although he joked that he doesn’t really do anything up there, it was cool to see him go back and forth between the keys, drum machine, and drum pad, and he led a lot of the banter between the two of them, as well as the crowd engagement.
The only stain on the show was that in between songs the microphones didn’t have great sound so it made it difficult to follow their banter and crowd engagement. But that’s a small detail. It was a great homecoming for Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine.
