The Saturday nights in Trois-Rivieres are raucous, to be sure. We ate pizza at 2AM, then I was up at 8AM to send e-mails at the local coffee shop, and brought back some coffee at 10AM…there is no faster way to become a venerated hero to your bandmates than to bring them pizza late at night and coffee in the morning! I rode that wave for about 30 minutes and then they were back to making fun of me as per usual. We left The Strumbellas, with many long hugs goodbye. They were going to Moncton and we were headed to Montreal where we were set to play at L’Inspecteur Epingle with a lovely fellow named Jon Davis and his musical mate Matt Tomlinson.

We rolled into Montreal and ventured into the wild streets where we came across their Pride parade and enjoyed ourselves before ultimately finding the venue and a place to eat some amazing vegetarian food. The venue was already filling up when we got back and soundchecked and played some pool. Jon and Matt played some tunes and we hit the stage late, but the crowd stuck around, which was incredible for a Sunday night. We exchanged road stories with Matt and Jon before heading off to sleep. Once again I was up early (being a mailman and a dad I’m just used to getting up kind of early) and went to the local market for breakfast fixin’s; which became a real breakfast under the tutelage of chef Shawn Jurek. We had a surprisingly leisurely day, since we didn’t have to drive anywhere, and in the late afternoon made a luxurious pasta dinner courtesy of Alex Dodd — the resident pasta aficionado of the band. We quickly bolted over to Burritoville for our second Montreal show and played to a slowly growing crowd, who were sweetly appreciative of the music.

We were all up early the next day for the longish drive to Woodstock where we hooked up with The Strumbellas one more time to play at Dooly’s. It was very nice to play one final show with them on this tour, and exchange tales of what had happened in the two days we had been apart. We won’t see them until our CD release show on Sept 7th at The Horseshoe. Playing at Dooly’s was fun — in part because of the full-on lighting system — and then we set up camp in the backyard of a local restauranteur who was kind enough to let us stay on his property gratis. Of course when we woke up we had to check out his restaurant for a giant breakfast and then head to Fredericton where we lazed in a coffee shop and then headed to the river for a jam/rehearsal by the water.

Everywhere we go people seem to know that we’re “the band”, or at least in a band. Is it that obvious that five smelly guys and one lovely lady must be a band? I guess so… Anyway, Fredericton is going to get harmonied up tonight here at Dolan’s Pub!