We were warmly greeted by Sheila and Alex at the Apollo in Thunder Bay and provided with homemade veggie burgers and fries. I love going to the Apollo. It’s like a little haven for travelling bands - food and lodging provided, a terrific stage with great sound. If only it was in a better part of town - the immediate area is dismal and there’s not much in the way of pedestrian traffic, so it’s almost like it exists for the bands alone, a magical pocket of music in an otherwise grey and silent street.

Shows start late at the Apollo, so we had a lot of time to kick back. Marcus was sitting talking with Sheila outside the bar when a car pulled up and the occupants rolled down their window and looked around. Thinking they needed directions, he went to talk to them. They turned out to be Jehovah’s Witnesses, starting off their spiel with “Just hanging around in front of the bar, are ya?” Their attempts to convert, save or otherwise redeem Marcus’s soul met with failure after a few minutes of debate, and they drove off in disgust.

We met James Lamb and Miss Emily Brown, who are in the middle of a move from Vancouver to Montreal and playing shows along the way. She has a gorgeous voice, and together they played an acoustic set of soft, contemplative folk-inspired songs that was so soft and lonely and beautiful that I truly had to fight off tears. I bought her CD and am waiting for the right moody moment to listen to it.

After Emily and James finished, we played a low-key set without incident. Marcus had the bar put the lights on low, and it was quiet and mellow on a Sunday evening, and none of us felt chatty or funny.

Women followed us. I am highly amused by the fact that they are named Women. I had to go up and ask “Which one of you Women is the bass player?” I’m sure they’re sick of the jokes, but at the same time, they brought it on themselves by naming their band Women. They’re a sort of lo-fi art-pop, influenced by Sonic Youth, with a sound reminiscent of Velvet Underground combined with early Pink Floyd.

The evening ended on a few sombre notes. As we were packing up, a guy came up to the bar with blood all over his face and clothes, saying that a couple of guys had jumped him in the alleyway nearby. Sheila and Alex called 911, and police and an ambulance showed up. I’m not sure how it all ended up, or if there may have been a little more to the story than the fellow let on.

Also, we had learned early in the day that on the weekend, the Vancouver band The Hotel Lobbyists rolled their van into a ditch somewhere around Manitoba, and their drummer, Mike Gurr, was killed. Two of the other members were badly hurt as well. We ended the evening talking about their accident. We don’t know them personally, but know a few people who are friends with them, and it’s a sobering and unnerving reality that hits pretty close to home: they played The Apollo just five days before us. We’d like to send out all our sympathies & best wishes to the Lobbyists and their friends and families.