Almost alone in the Peg and the Bay

There comes a low point on every tour. I hope we've passed ours. On Vancouver Island it was having one of the best show of our lives at UVic and then having a majority of the crowd walk away on us in Nanaimo the next day for us not being heavy enough or mosh-able. While our hosts in Winnipeg and Thunder Bay were wonderful, the crowds were well... non existant. But i musn't be so negative because both nights had serious turn arounds that left a smile on my face.

We played last in Winnipeg after a band called All Your Friends, who's audience decided it was too late to stay out and listen to music after they finished playing. So we were left with a table of other musicians who were touring through, our wise and noble videographer, Corey, our host Mike, and a couple other random people.

Faced with such a meager serving of audience i find it hard to get positive. The few who were there would consistently drag on applauses for almost uncomfortable amounts of time. The mood started rising.

Then in our last song, a new one called Ocean of a Sea, the musicians all jumped to their feet and danced in merry revelry. It somehow made the whole night worthwhile. And i thank them for that.

Thunderbay started off depressing. The ending of our winnipeg show was good enough to improve the night but not enough to keep me on a high for the next day. The owner at the bar warned me that Thunder Bay had gone through an economic recession and people just weren't going out anymore. Later we asked the sound guy if people came out to shows and he smirked cynically.
"Sometimes..." he said.

As we're supposed to start playing, there is nobody more than staff in the room. Josh recommends that we do some songs twice as we need to work on them more than others.
"Great" i think, "We came all this way to rehearse".
We go through a couple of tunes like this, and then all of a sudden to pair of eyes peer through the window at the back. The next thing we know there are 3 people at the bar. They tell us that they thought we sounded good from the road so decided to come in for a beer.
Shawn turns to me, "now we have a show. Let's play a show for these people". About ten other people walked in and once again our spirits were lifted.

Then it was off to Sault Ste. Marie. We're still going. Don't try and stop us.

Dom