ARCTIC Expeditions

Day 1:

The Road.

Hi everyone my name is Ian, I am a friend of Marcus's and his roadie, body guard? and merchandise seller all in one for this tour. This is my story of the journey.

For this tour we made a group decision to rent a mini-van so all of the gear would fit without any trouble, what we got was a van with ugly sea foam green paint job that would make the toughest bridesmaid cringe, but the gear fit and it drove fine so let's hit the road.

The drive to the first gig which was in Kelowna was routine save for a little accident I had while driving......it seems that eating a whole bag (small size) of Miss Vicky's Salt and Vinegar chips triggers a gag reflex in me and just as I was about to swallow a mouth full of water said reflex kicked in!

Water! all over the dash, steering wheel and of course me! Luckily we were close to our final destination so my discomfort was short. Because of his week M slept through my gaffe.

The Gig:

The venue was a place called The Grateful Fed at 509 Bernard in downtown Kelowna, this is a very cool little place. The contact person there is Karim and he was so easy to deal with, very pro live music. This was the best load-in I have had since I started helping out Marcus at some live shows. We parked the van on the street and walked about 15 feet to the outdoor "stage" which was really the patio.

The opening (and closing) band was "Heading South" and they supplied the P.A. for the night, which turned out to be a great system for a small outdoor venue. Once Heading South took the stage there seemed to be a temperature drop, we hit single digits but were dressed for summer....shit!

Heading South played first and rocked the joint, check out these guys if you can, they're great guys and they kick pretty good. You won't be disappointed.

Marcus came on around 10:30 and played for about 45 minutes. By the end of his set I could tell the cold was getting to his hands but despite the temperature his performance was killer! The sound mix was bang-on and despite the small crowd he had many pairs of eyes on him. One cool thing about the gig was the fact that the sound travelled well and people just driving by stopped to check out the show.

One sad note, this could be the last live show The Grateful Fed has since city council wants to pass some fucked up by-law to ban live outdoor patio music.... rise up people, demand more live music!!!

Well it's off to Enderby, until next time kids.

Ian