Thunder Bay was a typical Thunder Bay-ish kind of night; dinner at The Apollo, good chats with Sheila & Co., and a show with good sound. We met a local couple who’d just wandered in off the street and ended up chatting with each of them for ages after the show. We decided to stay in a hotel near the highway for the night, next to a mall, which turned out to be noisy, smelly, and generally unpleasant. The guys slept alright, but I was not at my finest the next day and slept through most of the drive to Winnipeg.

In Winnipeg we played at Standard Tavern, which used to be called Hooligans but was recently bought by Jill and Andrea. It’s the local watering hole for the neighbourhood bordering Wolseley, and gets a good crowd most nights.

We loaded in and ate deep-fried pickles, which are surprisingly good. Actually, the bar is planning to have an event where you bring something you want them to deep-fry, and they’ll deep-fry it for you for $5. I’ve already got a mental list going…

A local band called Weatherman Underground opened the night with a sort of 70s jam rock. Winnipeg crowds are always fun; as I’ve said, Western crowds aren’t so self-conscious. Once we got started, we had a few people up and dancing and really getting into the music. Now, one or two of the dancers were absolutely hammered out of their tree; one demanded that we play The Doors so he could join in, gave me a jumbo pack of Rolos, and approached Marcus between sets with some sage advice about John Lennon. At the end of the night, another guy brought us a tray with three shooters of Goldschlager and left it on the stage; he came by to talk to us a few minutes later as we were packing up, and stepped directly onto the tray, spraying Goldschlager everywhere. He apologized, rushed back to the bar for three replacements, and on the way back crashed into another customer and sent those flying as well. A waitress glared at him and sweetly offered to bring us the shots herself, and so began the afterparty.

We stayed at a house nearby, hung out with the bar owners and locals and stayed up ridiculously late (or early, depending on your perspective of when the next day began). Winnipeg ended up being the tour-end party, although there would still be one show to go and a long drive home.

I slept through most of the drive to Regina as well.

Actually, the drive to Regina was a little more eventful because there was actual real snow falling from the sky. Horrors! It wasn’t really accumulating, just blowing around the highway, but we did not approve of the snow and the cold so early in October. I know, I know, our name is ARCTIC and all, but you may have noticed we live in Vancouver where if the temperature drops to freezing, everyone panics and stays inside with the doors barred.

But we made it to Regina no problem. The snow and cold made things a little unpleasant loading in at O’Hanlon’s, but the bar was nice and toasty and there were lots of people. A Calgary band called Friendo played first - we were pleased to see the drummer from Women was part of it, as we’d played with them in Thunder Bay last year, and got to catch up with him for a bit.

So by the time we got up to play, there was a good crowd of listeners in from the cold. And they weren’t even all lurking in the back, but with a little nudge from Marcus, hung out and grooved in front of the stage. Bonus! Being the last show of the tour, we were exhausted, but threw everything we had into it and put on a really damn good performance. One guy told us afterwards, “Man, I shoulda brought my helmet ‘cause you guys made me feel like my head was gonna explode.” (He meant it in a good way.)

Last time we played there I’d heard about four or five glasses smashing over the course of the night. I didn’t notice any this time, just an ice cube flying from the balcony, but Rob said he heard five solid smashes. The soundman nodded and said the bar goes through a case of glasses pretty quickly.

Back into the snow to load out, and that was it… done. Twenty shows in thirty days, PLUS a radio performance at CIUT in Toronto PLUS Marcus did a solo set at CFCR in Saskatoon. For the last week, we had at least seven hours on the road every day. We’re all beyond tired, but feel that it was a really solid tour and we made the most of it.

Yesterday we drove to stay with a friend south of Calgary, and stopped in the tiny town of Piapot (population 55) for lunch at the saloon; they’re still going strong, and we’d actually just missed a big party the night before. Today we’re headed straight to Vancouver, and then it’s back to reality. Not that reality is a bad thing; for me it includes reuniting with my dog, and eating inexpensive quality sushi.

Thank you so much for reading along and coming to the shows and telling your friends and being a part of it all. Our next Vancouver show is November 12 at UBC, and we’re working on our tour plans for next year. We’ll see you soon, wherever you are!

Top Three Inside Jokes You Totally Had To Be There To Get

- Throat Varmint
- “…Can I talk to you for a second… over here?”
- “DO YOU KNOW what John Lennon said?”

Top Three Quotes

- “My brother’s the bass player in a famous band… you know, the Red Hot Chili Peppers… his name’s Fly.”
- “Oh, she just LOVES to choke the chicken!” (see video for explanation)
- “You must just stay over with all the girls that come along, you little studmuffin.”

Marcus: 3
Rob: off the scale + 2
Kirsten: 3
Joey: off the scale - 1

Our tour wouldn’t be complete without our semiannual lunch at Bren’s Bake Shop in Belleville, and we managed to squeak it into the plan for Saturday on our way to Ottawa. We got a nice warm welcome and wolfed down some soup quickly. We found out we had some time to kill when we got to Ottawa, which gave me an opportunity to wander around the Market area of Ottawa, where I’d never been. It is, as you may have suspected, largely a market.

I’ve been excited about playing at Zaphod Beeblebrox for years, not just because it’s famed in the area for the great music they bring in, but because the name comes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and I used to have those books practically memorized. The universe didn’t end while we were in there (not that I noticed anyway) but I had a sip of a friend’s Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and it had the desired effect.

The bill included The Swingers, The Sheepdogs, and We Were Lovers. I missed The Swingers, alas, while I was eating fish & chips down the street with some old friends. The Sheepdogs are from Saskatoon and do a damn fine southern rock ‘n’ roll kind of thing. We Were Lovers, of course, you’ve heard of on this blog before and I have to say again, all the rumours about what Jordan did are totally false. Just ask Marcus.

I loved playing at Zaphod’s! There was a good crowd and they were very enthusiastic and vocal and we just fed off of the energy. There was much dancing, just when I was beginning to think Ontario doesn’t do the dancing thing. A few of the people in the crowd had seen us at Westfest and brought friends out. We played a really solid and energetic set. To top it all off, Zaphod’s gave us a recording of our show, so we’ll be sharing a few choice tracks with you at some point in the not-terribly-distant future.

All in all, it was a great way to end our time in Southern Ontario.

The next two days were pretty intense heavy-duty serious driving days to get to our Thunder Bay show on Wednesday night. The shortest route was the northern highway past North Bay, which would be 16 hours of drive time. Tuesday we started around 10:30 AM and stopped in Pembroke for lunch, where we parked the van next to two army tanks with signs on them saying “STUDENT DRIVER". Another truck pulled two trailers in a train behind it, one carrying a dead moose.

The drive up towards North Bay was absolutely beautiful, as the fall colours grew more intense the further north we went. After North Bay the landscape started getting more rugged and coniferous, but with pretty ponds and lakes still dotting the scenery here and there. We kept our eyes peeled for moose but saw none.

We stopped for dinner in Kirkland Lake, where the only restaurant we could find still open at 7:30 PM was a Chinese/Canadian place called, I think, Pagoda. As we sat, travel-dazed, and staring at the menu, we thought we heard the waitress say “…Oh, she just loves to choke the chicken!” We soon learned what she was talking about.

You just can’t get service like that at Subway, I’m telling you.

We finally ended up in Kapuskasing around 11 PM and I was asleep almost immediately. It’s funny how sitting in a van for that length of time wears you out. I wasn’t even driving!

The most remarkable thing about the drive from Kapuskasing to Thunder Bay was on how little there was to remark on. Even the Trans-Canada has a fair number of little towns along the way, random gas stations, whatever. I think we had a 2-hour stretch where there was absolutely nothing besides trees and the occasional sign. And since Rogers’ cell service stops at Kapuskasing, three-quarters of the van was in radio silence all day. You don’t really feel like you’re “getting away from it all", though, because ultimately you’re still in a van, moving, not interacting with nature in any way… but at least it’s far more pleasant to look at than another one of those damn “Smart Centres” with the Wal-Mart and Home Depot and six acres of parking lot!

Marcus: 2
Rob: off the scale + 2
Kirsten: 2
Joey: off the scale

Thursday: London

Thursday was our last-minute pick-up show at Call the Office, a London venue that is a piece of Canadian music history. The old stone walls are lined with show listings dating back to the 90s, where you can see bands like 54-40 and the Skydiggers making routine appearances. Radiohead showed up as well, and their setlist is immortalized on the board. I had been there myself many years ago to see Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, and had been looking forward to the opportunity to play there ever since.

We got stuck in traffic on the 401 on the way out, but still when we got there there was no one around but the sound tech and one bartender. We waited a bit for the headliners, Tyvek, and then decided we might as well set up since they clearly weren’t planning to soundcheck. Got that out of the way and went for a bite to eat (an excellent Indian restaurant half a block away - yum).

We were due to go on at 10:30, and headed back to CTO… to find it still nearly empty, and Tyvek nowhere to be found, no word, no explanation. Given that they are from Michigan, our best guess is that they got held up at the border for some reason. I don’t think anyone at the bar was checking phone messages, so even if they were trying to get in touch they couldn’t have done so. There were still about a dozen people or so hovering around, so we shrugged and launched into our set.

The set actually turned out to be a lot of fun, despite the absence of the headlining band and their fans. We got to talk to everybody there, and had a good time joking around. (Me: “Observe the sound man in his native environment. Careful! Quiet! Don’t disturb him.” Joey: “GRRRRRR.” Me: “Oh dear, we’ve upset the balance of nature…") Actually, I think we played a lot better than we did in Toronto, because there was less to worry about and we had all the time in the world.

The Londoners all apologized for the poor turnout, but it was perfectly understandable to us given that we had only booked the gig twelve hours earlier and the headlining band didn’t show up. And it didn’t really feel like it mattered, because every single person there was enthusiastic and friendly and told us how much they enjoyed the show. I’ve often said I’d rather play to a handful of people who are really getting into the music than a packed room of people who are ignoring us; it is so much more rewarding.

So despite the weirdness of the night, we had a grand time and hope to be back someday under better circumstances.

Friday: Kitchener

Friday was another last-minute pick-up show, because we hadn’t actually had anything booked that day at all and a friend hooked us up with Bobby O’Brien’s, an Irish bar in Kitchener. They don’t normally have live music on weekends, but kindly offered us a place to play. They’ve got a good-sized stage and decent food, and are associated with Wax Nightclub upstairs which hosts bigger bands and DJs and things of that ilk.

Now, we’re not really what you’d call a bar band. We keep talking about learning some covers but just haven’t gotten around to doing it right. Our songs can be quite danceable, but in a pub environment people mostly just want to hear songs they know, or have music in the background while they talk to their friends. They aren’t there for the music.

We played our little hearts out as usual, and once in a while between songs, two or three people in the crowded restaurant even applauded. I don’t think we said a single word besides “Thanks” and “We’re ARCTIC” because we could just feel that nobody really wanted to hear anything else out of us. Oh, there was one guy who grumbled “Turn it down” between every few songs, and another calling out “play some Rush” towards the end. My amp blew a tube partway through the night and I had to play through the DI for the rest of the set. I wouldn’t say it was our finest hour.

We did notice a few people getting into it, at least; the one guy who actually came up and stood and watched for a while really made my night, as did another who came to talk to us afterwards and said he’d really enjoyed it.

And that was that.

Saturday: St. Catharines

And then this was a completely different type of show entirely. We weren’t playing in one of St. Catharines’ established music venues, but at Delyla’s, a pizza restaurant and bar run by our drummer Rob’s brother and his girlfriend. They started the place up last year after massive renovations and it’s been a growing part of the Port Dalhousie experience. Since they have a large patio with plenty of space for a band, they offered to host the show for us, and it turned out to be a pretty terrific experience.

A lot of work went into the show - unlike most venues that are set up for bands to just show up, plug in and play, Delyla’s had to hang tarps on the patio and get us set up with a PA for sound. Actually, we had some nervous moments in the afternoon, when we heard thunder and it started to rain for a little while. Luckily it cleared up and stayed beautiful all evening, with a full moon and everything, and wasn’t even too cold; a little chilly like you’d expect in October, but the patio heaters kept everybody toasty.

After soundcheck, I had to run down to Lakeside Park, where they are still operating an old and beautiful carousel for 5 cents per ride, as part of an agreement with the city. What can you even do for 5 cents any more?? I rode twice. It is so simple and lovely and real.

Yukon the Tourist (aka Graham) opened the night with a mix of covers and originals on guitar. He and Rob have been friends practically since they could walk, and Rob hopped up on the drumkit to accompany him for a while. The room was packed, and lots of Rob’s family and friends were eager to see him in his first return to St. Catharines in over two years.

Do I even have to tell you it was a fun show? A crowded room full of people who truly wanted to see us and get into the music? Oh yeah. Even our beloved amp maker Glen Morris was there, finally getting to see my wonderful bass amp in action (and he’d souped it up a little more, too, so I can play with a sub boost - wheeee!)

We decided tonight was a big giveaway night, and gave away an office voodoo kit, a Kim Mitchell record on vinyl, and the Indie Rock Colouring Book. We played just about everything we know, saving one song as an encore, and hung out afterwards for a few hours enjoying the night. Good times.

Sunday was a day off to catch up on sleep and laundry and errands and blogging and whatnot; Monday we’re off to Ottawa to play a famous free Monday showcase at Zaphod Beeblebrox, along with We Were Lovers, The Sheepdogs, and The Swingers.