Touring is pretty neat. It's kinda like when dads go on a fishing trip. Nothing but the open road, hanging out with good bros, a complete lack of personal hygiene, and of course excessive amounts of beer.
We hit the road this past weekend for a couple rock shows with our good friends in the band
Maurice. This was our first trip with them, and it didn't disappoint. I only wish we could have continued along with them on their journey out to Alberta the following week because I'm sure that would have been epic.
Things started off in Vancouver at
The Media Club on Thursday. We were excited because in addition to Maurice, our label-mate from Toronto,
Billy The Kid, was performing an acoustic set. Definitely check out her music if you get a chance. This was our second time performing at The Media Club and the crowd was really welcoming. We were originally supposed to play around 11:30, but Maurice's guitar player (our friend and local band-slut Aidan Knight) was double booked, playing an all ages show in langley with his other band
Counting Heartbeats, so we swapped things up with them and went on second. We had a few industry types coming down to the show so it was important not to get too wasted. Dan of course managed to drink excessively and somehow got tricked into drinking backwash beer from an oversized Heineken bottle. Thankfully I think that all happened post show and there were no major mishaps other than Dan fondling another man's beard (don't ask - let's just chalk it up to "
beard envy"). Billy came on after us, and played a great set. She brought a percussionist she's been working with in LA to accompany her on stage and it sounded awesome. Maurice finished up the night with a solid dose of rock, and then we lurked around the Media Club chatting up the promoter and other local band folks until they kicked us out. Later that night we ended up partying with some friends of Maurice's, but it was past my bedtime so I crawled into the back of the van and called it a night.
The next morning, as is common in these sorts of adventures, I couldn't locate the rest of the band so I headed on a mission to find some water and possibly some greasy breakfast. Randomly I ran into the Osborne sisters who we're helping their dad (Neil Osborne from
5440) load in some gear to
Garth Richardson's studio. I guess they were about to lay down some bed tracks for a new album they've been working on when I stumbled in looking like a hobo that slept in a van all night. They were accommodating and gave me a tour around the studio and then showed me all the dollar store goodies they had purchased to bring some good vibes to their recording session. It was an assortment of studio essentials...plastic guitars, plastic drums, plastic mics, candy, mardi gras necklaces, greasy gel for Neil's hair, etc, etc. When Louise Burns (bass player from
16 mm) showed up to start laying down some bass tracks I figured I had stunk the studio up enough and continued on my mission to find some water. A little while later I ran into the rest of the band and we headed for breakfast with Maurice and then hit the road for Kelowna. For more info about the breakfast, check out
Lewis' blog. He's a man who knows his greasy food.
We arrived in Kelowna with plenty of time to get loaded in and do our usual soundcheck and warmup calisthenics. We played in a cool venue called
The Habitat and contrary to our original information about the show being all-ages, it actually turned out to have a restaurant license meaning that 19+ fans could buy me a drink! It was a bit of a family reunion at the show because my folks live in Kelowna and Dan's parents drove up from Nelson. Always great to spend time with the family. The show went well and we played with a great new up and coming band from Kelowna called
Fields Of Green. After the show the Maurice boys came to the realization that getting to Edmonton by 5PM the next day would be a considerable challenge, so unfortunately we bid them farewell and were left to keep the party alive on our own. Thankfully lewis' girlfriend has a brother who lives in Kelowna and him and his friends knew exactly how to get the party started. After we finished loading up Lewis was craving some grease so we headed to the local Denny's for some late night chow and convinced the server to hook us up with some beers even though it was a little after hours. Once we got our fill we headed over to the boys place for some late night jam sessions and some more beers and Captain Morgan's. The captain treated us well into the wee hours of the morning, when we finally crashed out.
The next day was relatively uneventful. Just a long drive back to the ferry, and some greasy ferry food. Although we were all pretty exhausted, we did make it back early enough to get down to
Logan's Pub to watch our friends from the Vanocuver band
Carpenter rock out. Their new album came out on
Smallman Records this summer and I highly recommend you check it out.
One final note...I'm putting together a video blog with a bunch of the footage we took from this trip, so keep an eye out for that showing up on our
YouTube site in the next couple weeks.
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