Journal: Final Tour Entry By Rob
Final Tour Entry By Rob
Somewhere between Kingston and Ottawa, Ontario. . .
Today I feel like a zombie. The sky is the colour of a dead television screen. Touring Canada in Winter, Fall, whatever, can be like this- big, empty, passive, alchoholic, Polar bears, ice bergs, dirt-mixed snow and moose. This is the third and final leg of a two and a half month tour which began in the Maratimes, then followed Ryan Adams around America and now this- Canada. We traverse our nation from left to right, beginning with Victoria, British Columbia, an old Colonial outpost with a 300,000 person mix of rich people, street people and hippies. 600 or so of them came to our show on November 1st. They were drunk and rabid, we were shaky and almost out of control. Working the kinks out was fun regardless.
Our home show in Vancouver the following night was, in my opinion, the best gig of the entire tour so far. We were tight and confident, the audience had just the right amount of booze in them, the venue was'nt too big and Tegan & Sara's stories were funny. Oh yeah, we got to sleep in our own beds as well and good thing because for the remainder of the tour the twins make us pitch tents at the side of the highway every night while they get helicoptered to the nearest Hilton. Keeps costs down.
Americans who know that there is a country above them and especially if they ever peruse an atlas of our fine continent, these Americans, I'm telling you these Americans find humour in how we name some of our cities- Moose Jaw, Whitehorse, Red Deer, Yellowknife, you know, the usual. Here's another they may not have heard of, "Salmon Arm". Funny eh? Who woulda thought, salmons with arms. I'll tell you something about Salmon Arm, it's where Chris and I as team "T&S;" played a game of basketball (our gig that night was an all-ages high school prom in a gymnasium) with Wes and Phil from team "Way Out" from the opening band, "The Way Out". This was their third support slot with us and they were getting a little too cocky so we decided to school them and bring them down a couple notches with some two on two. We lost, we lost four games in a row. We lost our dignity. Sara cried, Tegan beat us repeatedly and docked our pay that night. Personally I don't think Chris and I lost because we're in our late forties while Phil and Wes are young enough to wear diapers, which they do. I just think we should have played soccer. Then who'd be the loser? Huh Wes?
Calgary, pronounced Cowgry, Alberta is Sara, Tegan and Chris' home town. Albertans are crazy. We played in a stadium-sized university auditorium and I swear T&S; knew everyone in attendance. Their parents of course, as well as aunts, uncles, cousins, both high schools, one elementary school, 2 doctors, 3 dentists, 1 lawyer, 15 former neighbors, 25 former partying mates, 7 former crushes, 12 former gang member friends, their cat's vet, 8 former co-workers, 11 of their mom's friends, 3 stalkers, 50 crazy people, the Premier of Alberta and a smattering of unknown fans were in attendance. They all applauded very loud and boisterously. Thank-you Cowgry.
I/m still feeling Zombie, maybe a little robot so don/t get all seperation anxiety if I fail to mention your city here. It doesn/t mean it was a bad show, it does/nt mean anything at all. (If you/re still crying refer to Tegan/s journal entry, she may have filled in some of the cities I missed).
Edmonton likes to drink. Albertans are crazy. god love 'em. We do. Woke up the following morning to snow and sick Tegan. During the six hour drive to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan we gave up some comfort so she could stretch out full on a bench seat in our hundred thousand dollar tour jet because she was grey/green and vomiting. She even fainted in the lobby of our hotel once we were in Saskatoon and Chris carried her to her room as if she was some sort of street druggy. We really wanted to take her to the hospital because, well partly we were of course deeply concerned about her well-being but also because she smelled funny and it would have been better for all of us. She mumbled insistance that she was okay. Aw shuks T. Quin you're such a trooper we thought. What followed was, was...it's hard for me to choke back the tears, please bear with me............What followed was an incredible sight before unseen............ Behold!, Sara becoming affectionate with her sister, comforting her by rubbing her lower back! I know I know, if I was'nt there myself...I'm telling you. It was then that we knew this was a serious situation. We had to cancel that night's gig (only the second time in T&S;'s 4.5 year touring history). Fortunately we were able to re-schedule it for the following night and Tegan's 24hr. flu had passed. The Tegan and Sara show, by this time, has been on tour for about two months and is beginning to feel quite road weary. Unfortunately when the Prairies turn into the Canadian Shield, the "Trans-Canada Highway" turns into the "Mexico 200". Hell, northern Ontario should just get annexed by the Americans. God knows the Ontario government forgot about their northern half long ago, at least the USA would have the good sense and pride to build a highway system worthy of the "Trans-Canada" moniker. Oh and they'de probably drop in some gas stations up there, so that when the two or three that are spread between the Manitoba/Ontario border and Sudbury are closed on a Sunday night, we won't run out of fuel then freeze and die on the side of TransCanada Street in the middle of fucking Fall/Winter!
Toronto was wet and slushy and snowy and cold but a whole bunch of its citizens came to Lee's Palace anyways to watch us rock out- sans monitors. Took us halfway through the set before we stopped feeling like idiots on stage as a result of us not hearing what we were playing. We might as well have been billed as a deaf band, at least then our furrowed brows would've made more sense. But that's Lee's Palace for you. Palace huh? Sure isn't, unless they were envisioning a fire-bombed, post-apocalyptic, crack den when they named it. Thankfully the fans kept us going. London (Ontario that is) restored our faith in public address systems the following night, thus greatly helping us have and give a really good show. However, as a side note, two things about London that are strange. One: the fan at the very front trying hard to strike up conversation with Tegan at absolutely every inopportune opportunity she could. Here, I'll just let Tegan, whose sitting right beside me, tell you about it......................Oh sorry folks it's still me Rob with you because Tegan's writing hand is stuck up on some I'm-so-enamoured-with-the-really-exciting-flat-leafless-Winter-in-Ontario-scenery pedastal that my right hand won't come down off of it to give you the time of day. Tegan "The Ice Queen" Quin. Yup, I can see my breathe. Anyways, wierd
London two: Every time I play this city, no matter what venue, the backstage "greenroom" walls are slathered with drawings of dicks and male ass sex that boy rock bands think is REALY funny. Yeah, ummm... we think they're trying to tell us a little secret about themselves in an art therapy sort of way.
Hamilton, Guelph, Kingston- all pretty good shows but we/re getting more bitchy and tired as the odometre in the van racks up points. No amount of the Police's greatest hits, the new Spoon album, Queens of the Stone Age, Modest Mouse, the Cure or Tegan and Sara high school acid casualty stories can boost our morale. We need a serious pick up, a Swedish spa, some home-cooked meals, the tour to be over, my dog Leroy, anything! Please God, we want to gouge each other's hearts out and stuff them down tour manager Nick's throat! We need help...
....Ladies and Gentlemen, god listened. He sayeth (with tonnes of reverb and delay). "WELCOME,COME..COme..come to OTTAWA..WA..Wa..wa". When I earlier proclaimed Vancouver to be our best show to date, I had not the priveledge to experience the rabid T&S; fans of our nation's capital. We could have been dead, propped up with poles fashioned out of birch wood and the fan's exhaltation would have risen us back to life. If there were an earthquake or hurricane in Ottawa that night the fans would have gathered around us as a protective human shield while Barrymores caved in on top of us. My friend Rene says that they teach "How to be a world class fan" in the Greater Ottawa school system. There is no match, Ottawa rules the planet. So we kept the buzz with us into Montreal the following night. Now if the rest of Canada's cities were Montreal we would be an even cooler country than the U.K. Sorry rest of Canada, everyone knows that Montreal is our flagship "Cool" city. It's all that quirky (read: cheesy) Quebeco-pop and super sexy, hot girl and boy(i guess) action.
We finished our cross-Canada tour in Peterborough at the lovely Gordon Best Theatre. Done. Kinda. Our massive touring bus isn/t big enough for Sara so she decides to fly in her private jet down to Philadelphia while the rest of us can/t bear to be apart from each other and opt for the 9 hour drive instead. And good thing otherwise we never would have had the pleasure of experiencing Binghampton, New York on a Sunday night. We drove around for days looking for some place to feed us. Finally we had to resort to dumpster diving in order to scrounge up some old noodle soup and half eaten bread. We had no clue it was American Thanksgiving Week or else we would have posed as some Binghamptoner's long lost Scottish cousins and walked right in some random house for dinner.
Philadelphia was fun. The venue was called, "The Fire" and it was as if we were playing in someone's basement wreck room. Good teenage show. Then we went back to the hotel and watched Jared Leto and his band 30 Seconds to Mars walk by us with some hot hipster/hootchie girls. Whatever, who cares. I'll tell you who, Tegan and Sara do. Mention Jared Leto and they become giddy school girls. Very disgusting.
Okay, I'm bored, I don't want to write anymore, we/re on our way to play our last show at the Mercury Lounge in NYC and it's going to be my birthday and I'm going to spend my Birthday money that T&S; gave me last night on some clothes. Tegan and Sara really are very cool. By the Way you can send money and presents to T&S; and they'll forward them to me.
Best wishes for the Holiday season,
see you next year.
Love Rob