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Tour began Nov 6th, 2006
ENTRY # 1 -Friday Nov 17th, 2006
And finally…
I have moment to write about all that has
happened over the past 2 weeks. Normally I would have posted a
couple of updates by now, but the truth of the matter is: there has
been absolutely NO time! Rob and I have driven across the
country, played 9 shows, met a whack of wonderful people and have
had no time to do anything but drive (a LOT), play shows (every
night, no break), sleep (little) and eat (whatever comes our way).
We managed to squeeze in a lifetime of talking in all the cracks,
but definitely no time to write a blog, edit pictures, etc.
So, here I am, on the ferry to Vancouver
Island, and I’m going to have at it and try to fill you in….
The tour began almost 2 weeks ago when I
finally managed to pick up Rob at his place, only about 5 hours late
(there was an explosion near the garage where I was getting my car
tuned up…. Then they found out that my car needed a new…. I don’t
know… something engine-ish… whatever it was they fixed it, but it
took a long time). So, I pulled up to Rob’s place, extremely
excited. I had this memory running through my mind of being at
work mopping up the floors and using the image of ‘the next time I
get to go on tour’ to get me through the shift. And there I
was, car packed, shows booked, on my way to pick up a musician that
I respected a GREAT deal and who I knew would soon become a good
friend as well (more on that later, but Rob is pretty much the
greatest guy of all time, bar none). I nearly got into an
accident as I u-turned into his building, but I was spared by a kind
driver who honked his horn in support… I’m assuming. We loaded
up in a hurry and we were off!!
The next 2 days were spent booking it to
Winnipeg for our first show. I don’t think we listened to any
music, except maybe a song or two that came up in conversation, as
we were talking our faces off the entire time. Rob is
definitely a kindred spirit, so full of passion for life and music,
and dedicated to his craft; it was so great to talk about things
that you just don’t ever get to talk about in day to day life (trade
secrets….). Highlights from our trek to Winnipeg:
-
The view of lake superior
-
Getting familiarized with our GPS system
(and changing it’s voice to a demure British woman named ‘Jane’)
-
Craving vegetables like there’s no
tomorrow after 2 days of bread and cheese, only to pull into the
place where we were staying to find a vegetable/stir-fry/heaven
place across the street (and as I was ordering my stir-fry, I got a
call telling me that I had received a grant from the Government in
support of my new record!!! Which then led to dancing and hugs in
front of strangers, which then was briefly curtailed as we ate our
stir-frys, but was then taken up again seven-fold as we made our way
to the nearest bar we could find to celebrate (modestly), I mean, we
hadn’t even played a show yet, we couldn’t ‘let ‘er dangle’ just
yet…But your know… the pints were only $3…. So, I don’t know…
-
Staying above ‘The Appollo’ in Thunder
Bay (thanks to Sheila!). We had the option (no word of a lie) of
about 24 different beds in 9 different rooms… it was pretty darn
great.
-
The Tim horton’s breakfast sandwich, no
meat, but with tomato…. I’m a sucker, Rob is much more strong-willed
than I
-
Regina Spektor!
We arrived in Winnipeg, checked in with our
gracious hosts (Terry and Terry, they’re both named Terry!), had
some delicious veggie lasagna and then headed off to our first gig
of the tour at The Cavern. The show went pretty well, I had
some old friends from Montreal come to the show who just so happened
to move to Winnipeg that night! Pretty crazy…
We spent the night at the Terry’s place, were
treated to breakfast and a bagged lunch (can you believe how nice
people are!?!) and then headed off to Regina.
Our show in Regina was at a place called the
Free House, which was a pretty good spot, but apparently the Goo Goo
Dolls were in town the same night, so we had a little competition….
Fortunately we took the Goo Goo Dolls down and had 15 000 people at
our show while they played to an empty stadium….
Well…. I don’t know… all I’ll say is that we
had an appreciative audience and Rob and I had a great time playing
our sets…. Goo Goo Dolls… what kind of a name is that anyway?
No hard feelings…
We spent the night at some random Regina motel
on the outskirts of town, relatively respectable, except for the
washroom (I fear the dirty shower curtain, and it’s very difficult
to try to shower when you absolutely don’t want any part of your
body to come in contact with it and it keeps creeping towards you
through some unexplainable breeze…)
We got up in the wee hours the next morning and
headed out on the long drive to Edmonton.
Now here’s where the real fun begins…
One of Rob’s friends (who will remain nameless
for security purposes) put us up in the luxurious Delta hotel, right
downtown, full size suite, the whole nine yards… I’ll admit it, we
were not hard-core at all that night, we were the soft wimps we
truly are, and indulged in the duvets and fancy carpeting (and the
in-room treats…well… I indulged in the in-room treats while Rob
laughed at me). Our show that night was at the sidetrack café,
which is a pretty legendary venue in Edmonton. The sound was
great, turn-out was great, we finally had a great show under our
belt! We then headed off with Rob’s friends (and my new
friends) to a local bar where some other friends had a great cover
band that was playing. These guys were ridiculously good, and
soon had Rob and I up there playing covers with them (no pictures,
sadly…. I was playing a Gibson Flying V!). Rob busted out ‘My
Sharona’ and ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’, while I had my hand at
‘All Along the Watchtower’, ‘High and Dry’, and ‘Lovers in a
Dangerous Time’. I’ll be honest; I pretty much butchered all
three (except for maybe ‘Watchtower’ where I cranked out a very
‘experimental’ distorted solo), but had a blast nonetheless. I
can blame the Guinness that was being poured down by throat…. So I
guess I will --- it was because of the Guiness.
Next morning was a little slow to rise, but we
finally got up, had a great breakfast with some family friends and
then headed out to Calgary.
We arrived in Calgary and met up with our good
friend Donna (who had booked the show for us at the last minute when
we were in a bind… THANK YOU DONNA!), had a great dinner and got set
up for our show. The venue was not a regular ‘original live
music’ venue, but it filled up with people there to see us (which
was pretty exciting) and we had a great show. The bar staff
there (Original Joe’s) were exceptionally nice to us, so thanks to
them too!
The next morning we once again were up at the
crack of dawn for our 9 hour drive to Grande Prairie (we pretty much
drove at least 8-hours every single day of this tour). We
arrived in Grande Prairie at the little theatre, just in time to set
up our gear before they opened the house. Rob’s friend Shane
Seward had set the whole show up, done incredible promo and we found
ourselves in a GORGEOUS theatre with a packed house of nearly 150!!
It was definitely one of those dream shows; couldn’t have been a
better time. Rob’s set was amazing; he’s got quite the
following in Western Canada (and they’re all the listening-type fans
so I got very spoiled playing to them).
Shane put us up at his place (for 2 nights!)
and even cooked us a gourmet breakfast the next morning! We
had a show at the college at noon that day, which was brief (about 4
songs each) but went really well (Grande Prairie’s a hidden gem).
The highlight was definitely playing with Chris’s (the booker at the
college) baby ‘Jasper’. I would say ‘cutest baby ever’, but as you
all know, my niece Mikayla holds that title, but Jasper was a pretty
damn close second. He even threw up on me and I loved it!
I should mention at this point, that most of
this tour was spent in the blistering cold and raging snow.
You’ve got it good Ontario and Vancouver… Much of the rest of Canada
has -22 in November… that’s damn cold!…
In order to escape the snowy madness that was
Grande Prairie, Rob and I ducked into a sushi restaurant and had
what felt like the greatest meal of all time. I asked for a
bottle of beer and they brought me what looked like 3 bottles of
beer stacked on top of each other, and we gorged ourselves on heaps
of sushi and tempura…. I can’t tell you how good it tasted after a
few too many days of rice cakes, Tim Hortons and granola bars…
As the storm raged on outside, we made our way
over to our friends Julie and Emily’s house for dinner. They
made us a spectacular vegan meal (we sure were spoiled on the food
front this tour) and then sat around chatting and listening to
music. At some point, somehow (I think maybe it was my fault)
we ended up having a spontaneous dance party in the living room,
which was an explosion of utter joy, hip thrusting and eventual body
odour. We danced for hours to all kinds of wild music,
got a call from the landlord, and then kept going! Rob and I
both agreed that it was some of the best fun we had had in a very
long time. We invented all kinds of dance moves; Rob did a
really good ‘Andy Warhol dancing begrudgingly’ sequence; awesome.
After a long, melodrama-laden goodbye, we
headed back to Shane’s place to sleep, but got royally lost on our
way (this seems like an appropriate time to really expound on our
GPS that we had with us on this trip. The GPS was totally
great, make no mistake; it did all kinds of cool things like talk to
us in a sexy British accent, mispronounce the word ‘One hundred’ and
moo like a cow every time we were within 2 kms of a restaurant, but
I think maybe it dumbed our brains down so that without it, we were
completely lost. Basically we didn’t have Shane’s address, and
we didn’t get the whole ‘simple, straightforward, grid’ concept that
is Grande Prairie, so we got a little lost, no big deal…
The next morning, we headed off to Fort St
John, where we knew a great meal and cushy hotel room would be
waiting for us… softies again...
After loading in, we met up with the
incomparable Ryan Hennessey for some drinks before the show.
Our sets both went really well, Rob had many devoted fans in the
front row singing his songs at the top of their lungs! Leading the
charge was none other than mister Hennessey, who became increasingly
‘endearing’ as the night went on (he too is probably one of the
nicest guys ever). By the end of the night, there was much
hugging, laughing, singing, wobbly-ness, and smiles all-round.
Fort St John, BC’s hidden treasure…
Here’s where the story gets exciting….
So on our way out of Fort St John the next
morning, we’re driving along and we hear a rather loud ‘bang!’.
We quickly pull over, only to discover that our front left tire has
exploded…
Rob and I, being the strapping ‘pictures of
man-ness’ that we are…ahem… managed to change the tire in hurry (I’m
ridiculously proud of us, we even took pictures of each other
changing the tire… the locals driving by must have been having many
‘thoughts’ as they took in the sight of two lanky Ontarians in puffy
coats taking goofy pictures of each other changing a tire…)
Once the spare was firmly in place, we went
around to several different tire places, unsuccessfully (and
unsympathetically) , before one place finally agreed to squeeze us
in (thank you Fountain Tire!). They patched it up and we were
once again on our way, however now we were late, AND it was snowing
heavily…
I’ll also mention, that every person we talked
to kept warning us of the dangers of ‘Pine Pass’ (the road that we
had to take to get to Prince George). It seemed like every
time they would say ‘Pine Pass’, it had this echo-y, ominous,
booming quality to it, more like ‘PINE PASS….pine pass….echo echo
echo… boom boom boom….growl….imminent death…imminent death….’
We asked one local about it as we were approaching and he said
‘Well… I’d do it… but (takes a swig of his Kokanee)… but I’m
crazy!!! Ha hahahahahahhahahahhaha).
Very encouraging.
Nevertheless, we decided to take it slow and
make the journey.
Well, what can I say, it was every bit as
terrifying as they made it out to be. The roads were nothing
but snow and ice, and there were countless Moose or Mooses or Meese
or whatever you call lots of them who felt that it would be a good
idea to eat some snow in the middle of the road. I’ve never
been so terrified driving in all my life, but at the same time there
wasn’t really anywhere to stop, so we just had to keep going, VERY
slowly, for a VERY long time. What should have been a 4 hour
drive (accounting for some snowy roads) ended up taking over 8 and
we made it to the gig just as the first act was finishing their set
(well… as I understand it, they extended their set somewhat to kill
time until we got there). Regardless, the space was incredible
and it was full of a very patient, gracious audience. I
changed out of my disgustingly dirty clothes…. (they were already
pretty dirty before I got into changing the tire…so you can only
imagine…). We set up in a hurry, and played what I would say
was both of our best sets of the tour. It’s funny how when
you’re the most exhausted, you do things you wouldn’t normally do.
It’s nice to surprise yourself like that. The crowd was so
good to us and gave us incredible attention during both of our sets.
What a great night!!
After a nice late-night meal with our hosts
Eric and Neda, we hit the sack (briefly), only to get up a few hours
later to make the long trek to Vancouver (our longest drive of the
tour). All things considered, and especially in contrast to
our drive the day before, our drive that day went extremely well.
We were hearing reports of tsunami-warnings, gale-force winds,
power-outages etc. on the radio, but we somehow managed to miss it,
apart from one section of the road that was closed for a bit due to
a mud-slide/flood (seemed like small potatoes after the ‘Pine Pass’
drive). The view was breathtaking through the rockies… it
makes you feel really Canadian to drive through those snow-capped
mountains, I highly recommend it (but maybe shoot for the summer…)
We arrived in Vancouver, shared a final sushi
dinner together (sadness) and played our sets at The Main. It
was a nice little show to end the tour, great listening audience
with a couple of groups of people who just happened to walk in and
took to the show (it’s so nice when that happens!) Rob and I
did ‘Posters’ without amplification at the end of my set, a nice
little closing touch to our tour together. We then
headed back to Janna’s place; Rob had some wine with Janna and
Joanna, while I (very rudely) fell asleep mid-conversation. We
slept briefly (I’m noticing a trend here…), got up this morning and
I dropped Rob off at the airport. We had a BIGGGGGGG hug, said
a sad/happy goodbye and I headed off to the Ferry….
So here I am, on my way to Victoria and the
booming Ferry voice overhead is telling me I have to go back to my
car as we’ve almost arrived… so I'd better go.. More stories to come
soon as I venture on alone!
BONUS FEATURE:
Here’s a list of inside jokes between Rob and
I:
-
Lemon Water? Lemon Water.
Lemon Water!
-
Stupid Lazy Farmers
-
His Yogourt!
-
100 Hundjjred Meters
-
Let ‘er dangle
-
Hello Peter.
Hello Rob!
-
Humour
-
Love
Acknowledged
SCROLL DOWN FOR ENTRY 2
ENTRY # 2 -Sunday December 9th,
2006
A hero of mine once said
that you make your most interesting choices when you’re beyond
exhaustion ---- so given my current state, let’s see what that yields…
The tour is over and I
guess I should wrap up this tour blog so you don’t think I’m still
somewhere in Western Canada, drinking my frozen tears that streamed down
my face as Rob flew back to Toronto and I was left in Vancouver with no
drinking water and the storm of the century fast approaching. No… in
fact, I did survive…just barely…
Many a tale can be told
about how I made it home here in one piece: So…
After my nice little ferry
ride, I made my way to my dear friends Paula and Calvin (and Lucy, their
daughter)’s house for a lovely visit. I talked about them in my last
national tour blog (from last Feb) but I’ll just mention again that
they’re amazing people and artists and have the most wonderful home in
Victoria with a huge kitchen table and a great little loft above the
garage with a pull-down ladder and everything where I get to stay. We
had a wonderful visit, playing scrabble and eating quesadillas, walking
by the ocean, going to a potluck dinner (with all these artists and
teachers who had been involved in this community mosaic project:
cool!). It was all so relaxing and peaceful, if only I could have
stayed a little longer…. But sadly a day was all I had and it was back
to Vancouver the next morning, back to the no drinking water (all the
stores had left was Gatorade… nothing like a swig of Gatorade before
bed, just the thing to lull you off to sleep…)
I showed up at the Anza
Club for my gig that night and met the friendly members of Hey Ocean. We
had a great show, I got to play in front of a whack of people
and Hey Ocean definitely showed the appreciative crowd a great time.
They even did a 3 person drum solo! After the show I met up with a
bunch of old friends, including my very good friend Annie who took me in
for the weekend. She’s a yoga teacher (amongst other things, she’s also
a circus performer!) so she let me take her yoga class which was MUCH
appreciated. I realized that I pretty much hadn’t breathed in about 3
weeks and I definitely needed to unwind and let some of the stress from
driving across the country at a breakneck pace out of my body. After
class, we hooked up with some of her friends that were musicians, and
before long, they were feeding us delicious food and we were jamming
away. I even got my hands on a violin again for the first time in a long
time (it was my first instrument when I was a wee one, but I gave it up
when I was 14 for the guitar to be just like Billy Corgan…. So
melancholic….) I didn’t perform on the fiddle quite as well as I had
hoped, but I at least had a bit of my old form… At some point in the
night we realized that the host of the party (Tarun) and my brother were
good friends (small world) and that just weeks earlier my brother had
been playing me Tarun’s CD and telling me all about him (he’s this
insanely good tabla player who mixes tabla with all kinds of
instrumentation) We jammed out for hours, singing,
playing, laughing --- at truly great night, much needed.
The next day, I headed off
through the Rockies, hoping to make it to Calgary where my friends Kevin
and Laurel were waiting for me…
Here’s where the weather
started to suck, and didn’t stop sucking until I got back to Toronto (a
week and a half later...)
So the first part of the
drive was pretty good, I made it through the first string of mountains,
but then at some point, the sky turned on me, night began to fall, and
the snow started falling with abandon. The roads quickly became
snow-covered, the winds were blowing it madly about, and every time a
truck passed me, I was completely blinded for several seconds. Not to
mention that there were also several sections of intense fog, where I
literally could not see the front of my car.
I don’t want to go too
crazy here, because at this point I’m probably worrying my loved ones…
but let’s just say it was not a time to be out on the road. So, I
admitted defeat and pulled over at the nearest motel to spend the
night. I found myself in Golden, BC…. not much to report in Golden…
well…I ate an Asian stir-fry at a Greek restaurant/sports bar…that’s
somewhat noteworthy…?
The next day, the drive was
really not much better, but at least it was daytime so visibility was
somewhat improved. I made it to Lethbridge in time for my gig and found
myself at the early poetry reading before my show. There was a pretty
mixed bunch of people there, everything from bongo-drums, berets and
trumpet jams, to a 20-minute freestyle rap on the situation in Caledonia
by a 50 year old political science professor. There was some pretty
good material though, I was glad to have caught it. My show went off
without a hitch and I even got to do some tunes off mic!
The next day, I had to be
in Edmonton (5 hours away) at 11 am, so needless to say, I was up at the
crack of dawn and made my way north to the University of Alberta.
I got there with not much
time to spare as (you guessed it) the driving was horrible, but I
managed to get set up and get going on time. I was playing in this huge
open cafeteria area which I thought might not go over so well but I
ended up having one of the best responses of the tour. People were
actually coming up to the stage during my set and buying cd’s!! So much
so that by the end of my set I had this little pile of cash at my feet
and had sold 20+ cd’s! It’s rare that something like that happens so it
felt pretty great (thank you U of A!!).
After the show, I packed up
and headed back to Calgary to visit with my friends Kevin and Laurel.
Kevin made an amazing dinner (Enchiladas….mmmmm) and we chatted a lot
and I said inappropriate things to make people laugh. Kevin showed me
some of his latest poetry (which is absolutely stunning: he doesn’t do
‘conventional’ poetry, he does more handheld text-based art pieces (does
that make sense?)… hard to explain, lots of visuals (for e.g. he did a
portrait of Frida Kahlo using a typewriter as his ‘paintbrush’ and text
relevant to her and her life as his ‘paint’…can you picture it??)
We had a wonderful visit
and ate an enormous chocolate cake contraption (3 layers of pure
chocolate, separated by creamy-stuff, all piled on top of a chocolate
covered brownie…. Gross… but sooo good… but soooooooo gross.. but soooo
gooooooood……. And such a bad idea right before bed… it took me 2 hours
to fall asleep!). The next day I woke up and wrote a song about my tour
with Rob and how much I missed him. It was one of those ‘pour out in a
big blob of emotion songs’.
I did a rough recording of it, you can listen to it by clicking right
‘HERE’
The following day I
rejoined my friends Hey Ocean from Vancouver and we played a show
together at Mount Royal College in Calgary. It was a pretty nice show,
good crowd, great sound, good friends. The Hey Ocean crew looked like
they were poised to have a good night after the show, but I sadly had to
hit the hay to get ready for the string of shows I still had.
The next day I played a
house concert in Calgary at the home of two family friends from
childhood (they’ve actually been friends with my dad since he was a
teenager!). It was pretty crazy to have been in that home when I was a
child, and now be back there performing in their living room while on a
national tour. The show went so incredibly well, the place was full of
wonderful people, really listening and taking in the music. It couldn’t
have gone any better. Just to make things al the more special, there
was a boy named Jake who was there (wearing my shirt!) who had worked
really hard reading 15 books (he got $1 per book from his Grandma) so he
could pay for his own ticket to the show!! I was extremely touched (and
he kept calling me ‘Peter Katz’ even though I told him he could call me
Peter. He’d say ‘Peter Katz, why do you have so many guitars? Peter
Katz, do you want any water?”) He could not have been any sweeter.
Thanks Jake for reading all those books!!
The next day I headed out
to Saskatoon, once again driving in some pretty horrible weather, and
arrived just in time to set up for my show at Sandy and Kelly’s house.
They had a great space in the basement set up for a home theatre with
couches and candles, the whole bit, totally great vibe. There was
something really special in the air that night; I ended up doing all
kinds of songs that I never do, 2 long sets, and ended up getting pretty
emotional. The people there were so supportive and appreciative; they
brought something out of me. Definitely one of the highlights of my
trip! Thank you Sandy and Kelly!
After the show I met up
with Curt (Carrie Catherine’s husband) along with his friend (and my
friend now too) Jackson for drinks. We were soon joined by Ben Spencer,
a great musician from Edmonton who was on tour with Theresa Sokyrka. We
all crashed at Curt and Carrie’s GORGEOUS loft (where I was to play my
house concert the next day). In the morning, Jackson came over and
cooked us a ridiculously good breakfast (he’s a chef and all-round
food-enthusiast), definitely the best meal of the tour. I soundchecked
in my pyjamas (see photos!) the guests arrived and Ben started off the
show with a wicked 30 minute set. He plays this great sounding guitar
that he actually got by trading his friend a pizza for… it was all
beaten up at the time but he fixed it up and it’s a total gem! Makes
for a good story too…
The show went really well,
the vibe was incredible with the natural light pouring in through the
huge windows while the sun was setting…. Pretty idyllic…
After the show, we headed
out to see ‘Borat’ and peed ourselves… “very nice”.
The next day I headed out
on my way to Winnipeg and the worst storm of the entire tour fell upon
me… I didn’t make it to Winnipeg, not even close, as I had to abandon
ship in Virden and hole up in a motel until the next day. I was a
little bummed as I was supposed to meet up with some friends in
Winnipeg, but I decided that ‘not dying’ was likely the better choice.
Morning didn’t yield much
respite from the storm, but at least it was light out… I drove VERY
slowly, made it to Winnipeg by lunchtime where Terry and Terry had made
a lunch for me and left it in the fridge for me to take (those 2 have
the largest hearts in the world). I was hoping to make to Thunder Bay,
but knew that it wasn’t likely, given the weather. As expected, I
didn’t make it, night fell and I stopped in Dryden for the night. Not
much to report from Dryden… I ate pizza, I looked longingly out the
window at the storm, I tried to find a Swiss restaurant that I saw on
google maps but it didn’t exist anymore…
The next day I made it to
Thunder Bay just in time for a radio interview at Lakehead University,
and then it was off to the Apollo for the show. Attendance was a little
lower than anticipated, but the people that were there were very
gracious and Sheila (the owner) and her mom treated me incredibly well.
Her mom made me so much food (I’m talking this ENORMOUS greek salad in a
huge vat, potatoes, shrimp, etc. etc.) Even during my set she put a pile
of ‘to go’ containers full of food on the edge of the stage for me to
take with me! She was a total sweetheart and bought a pile of my merch
(even though I tried to give it to her and she probably was only doing
it to help me out… what an angel)
Bright and early the next
day I headed off to Sault Ste Marie, and for once the roads were decent
and I made pretty good time. The venue that I was playing at (Loplops)
was an absolutely gorgeous spot and I could tell from the posters on the
wall that they had a pretty solid history of amazing acts. Once I had
set up and was heading out for something to eat, I met this guy George
who was having a shot (or two) of rye to deal with the pain from the
huge tattoo he was getting on his back. We chatted for a bit and he
kindly invited me over for dinner (people are so nice!). We had a great
meal, he called everyone he knew and helped get a little crowd going at
the venue for me. Stephen (the owner) and everyone there was really
great to me, I can’t wait to go back there on the next tour.
I crashed at George’s place
at 2 am, only to get up at 6 am the next morning to make the long trek
to Toronto for my full band show that night at the El Mocambo opening
for Mobile. After hearing reports of +15 weather in Toronto and nothing
but sun and heat, I was expecting an easy drive in, but, of course, a
cold front had just blown in and instead of balmy weather, there were
massive amounts of freezing rain and snow. The drive was VERY slow…
lots of overturned trucks and cars in ditches. I made it to town just
in time for a very quick band practice with the boys before heading over
to the venue for soundcheck. When we arrived, we found out that Mobile
had to cancel, so we got bumped to headline and my drummer (Brad)
graciously agreed to do the opening set. He whipped out an amazing 30
minute set (I can’t wait to sing with him; he’s got such a great
voice!), we played every song we knew and I did some solo stuff in the
middle and somehow it all worked out.
The next day I headed off
to London for a solo show opening for the incomparable Danny Michel at
the London Music Club. I really love that place; it’s like an old
converted mansion with a great sounding room, and it was packed to the
rafters with a great group of Danny Michel fans. They were very good to
me, and I was even able to do a tune (Forgiveness) completely off mic. Danny’s show
was unbelievable (even though he confessed to me that he was feeling
under the weather) --- he’s an absolute powerhouse singer-songwriter and
player, totally knocked me over.
After the set, I drove back
to Toronto and collapsed in my bed, once and for all.
BREATH / BREATH / BREATH
Somehow, through snow and
ice storms, 8 hour daily drives, countless different venues and cities,
unthinkable amounts of Tim Hortons breakfast sandwiches… somehow I had
made it home alive and well, and I felt pretty damn lucky.
Now, it’s time to get back
to the record and gear up for the next time that I get to do it all over
again, hopefully with the full band, and across the entire country (I
missed the east coast again…). I'll make up for it WITH THE NEW RECORD IN HAND!!!
Thanks so much to everyone
who gave me a bed, a meal, a smile, bought the CD, shared their
thoughts, came out to the shows, etc. etc. I am way too lucky in this
life, it is a total privilege to get to do what I do and I really don’t
take any of your kindness lightly, it means a great deal to me, so THANK
YOU!
Take care, lots and lots of
love, Peter
n.b. I wrote this song
about the tour and my time with Rob…
you can listen to it and download it HERE (It’s called ‘That Was Then’)
* to download the tune, right-click and
select 'save as' *
*lyrics below*
"That Was Then"
And just like that I find myself
Silent and alone
Wondering where it went off to
That time and place we’d known
I swear I was just moments prior
Beaming eye to eye
And there with me this friend for life
Driving by my side
Well I guess that’s just the way it goes
I guess that’s just the open road
All good things must find a close
And now that was then
now that was then
Moving on from town to town
Made new friends every evening
Soaking up that dying light
Ephemeral and fleeting
And oh how glorious it was
To dance in kitchens just because
Then in the twilight board the bus
Ohh that was then
Ohh that was then
And ohh everything was gravy
Oh everything was fine
Well do you think that maybe
We could go again sometime?
Just like that I find myself
Silent once again
Thinking of you fondly friend
And all that was then
All that was then |
