Kaycee Roy

There’s nothing like coming home for the holidays. Getting to reconnect with loved ones and reminiscing about the memories you made growing up are a staple of the season. But why not relive some of those memories instead of just talking about them?

This year, Five Cents Extra will return to its hometown, Fitchburg, to celebrate its 45th anniversary with New Pond Fondle.

Five Cents Extra began an annual show the night before Thanksgiving at The Country Lodge, an old barn converted into a honky tonk in Fitchburg, to celebrate its 20th anniversary in the ’90s. The band continued this tradition until the Lodge closed, forcing the show to move locations.

In recent years, The Bull Run, in Shirley, has been the new location for the annual show, but for Five Cents Extra’s anniversary, there’s no place like home.

Band leader John Girouard said “We decided were going to take it back to Fitchburg, just to bring it all back home, which is the theme of the night.”

The band was formed around 1976 by John Girouard, Ducky Belliveau and Ron Gagnon.

“I was brought up listening to this kind of music, the retro country music from the ’50s, and when I was living in Harvard Square, I was going out to see these guys that were doing western swing music and I thought, wow this is great, no one is doing this.” Girouard said.

Girouard returned to Fitchburg in the early ’80s and started playing retro country and western swing music in this area with a friend he convinced to buy a pedal steel guitar.

“I got the name from a bluegrass band already out called Breakfast Special, so I thought, at the bottom of the menu everything was five cents extra, so I said we’ll call it that,” Girouard said.

As the crowds grew, so did the need to get louder. The band introduced a drummer and some electric guitars and soon was playing to larger crowds than it had before.

Even if you’ve never heard of Five Cents Extra, there’s still plenty of reasons to check out this show. Many of the band’s influences come from the greats like Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Merle Haggard. With influences like those, there is a little bit of something for everyone.

The show has sold out the past few years at The Bull Run, but Girouard said he knows many people don’t want to drive all the way to Shirley, have a few drinks and then drive home again.

If you didn’t get a chance to catch the show when Five Cents Extra played at the Country Lodge, seeing the show this year will be a chance to step back in time.

The Thanksgiving Eve show will be held at 7 p.m., Nov. 21, at the Fitchburg Armory, 14 Wallace Ave., Fitchburg. For more information, visit the show’s event page on Facebook.