Family Reunion in Montreal

Now where was I. Well I’m not really sure so I’ll start in Montreal. It’s funny, I keep on raving about how great our hosts have been all across the country. A lot of them last minute deals where they most willingly take us in and end up feeding us and giving us fresh towels for our showers etc…

Montreal was a bit of the opposite. Our hosts had invited us months in advance, but because of our continuous delay in getting to Montreal, and my failing to call and warn that we wouldn’t be arriving for dinner, our hosts decided to leave us to find our own accommodations.

We’d originally planned to get to Montreal a day early so we could explore the city, but Toronto had been so much fun with late night to early morning after parties that we decided to stay an extra day.

Arriving at the venue I was greeted by an old familiar face that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I’d meant to contact my half brother Rob earlier but being on the road and having little internet access it had completely slipped my mind. It was strangely emotional seeing my brother after not seeing him for 14 years, and receiving little more than a facebook message from him in that time. It was great to see him again, but it’s funny how such a long period of no contact can leave two people with very little to talk about. You’d think there would be a mountain of topics to cover in catching up, but I’d assume that sometime after 3 or 4 years the mountain disappears.
It was wonderful to see him. I was very self-conscious on stage as my brother had originally gotten me into music. He taught me how to play my first 3 or 4 chords on the guitar. He’d taken me music shopping when I bought the first CD I ever owned.

Rob and his partner Lynn took Corey and I in for the night and gave us a bed to sleep on. It was another night of debauchery until sunrise.

We awoke in time to grab some ‘legendary (you’d be surprised how many things we’ve seen on tour have claimed to be legendary) montreal smoked meat before we headed off for another show in Ottawa.