From Shoe to Shoe

normally it's 'sault' ste. marie, as in 'soo' but our videographer mr. fischer started calling it shoe at one point. the reason for which escapes me. of course being as impressionable as i am, i had to follow suit.

the drive through northern ontario had been described as a snooze fest by people who had been there before. my sister even skipped this part of the country by bussing from winnipeg to toronto when she biked across canada a few years ago. i'd given her a hard time, but having seen it i can't really blame her. but who am i kidding, i was sleeping.

the venue in sault ste. marie, the lop lops, looked good. a hip lounge kind of feel. seeing the venue, i worried that we might be a bit too loud, and this fear was confirmed as we sound checked our selves a few hours before the show. the owner told us we needed to turn down.

now i like challenges, especially when we are forced to overcome such challenges with creative thought. we returned to the venue just after 10 PM to find a couple large groups who appeared to be at the venue for their social engagement and not the Painted Birds show. to keep from driving them out with our rock and roll we decided to play an acoustic set filled with our mellower numbers. now at this point i wish i could report that our scheme worked and we won them all over. but i must be honest with you. after about two songs, the large group of women that had caused our concern started filing out slowly. Which led me to think 'why am i catering to these people if they don't even care'.

We came back with the rock after our break and we won a number of them over.

after another 8 hour drive we spent a day in Toronto catching up with old friends and wandering around aimlessly from bar to bar. Today it's the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, which as far as i'm concerned is only 'legendary' because the smart owners decided to put legendary before the name. So i've decided to change my name. from now on refer to me as the Amazing Dominique Fricot. soon it won't even be questioned and wham i'll just be known as that without any justification.

looking forward to southern ontario

Dom