We’ve had some exciting adventures on the road since our last recap. We finished up a great Canadian run with Dragonette, and flew out to California for an epic three-day, sold out tour with The Sounds and UTIOG. I’ll just dive right into the recap, yes?
QUEBEC CITY / OTTAWA
By far the most French city we visited, it was a beautiful place with a beautiful club, Le Dagobert. As Martina commented, it was what we all imagined strip clubs to look like before actually visiting one on our friends 18th birthday. All Mirrors, sparkles, poles, and track lighting. We met some lovely French-Canadiennes, learned a few useful phrases, and got a completely incomprehensible parking ticket. Great. Our Ottawa show at Zaphod’s was cool as well. We had our first helping of Poutine (fries with gobs of cheese and gravy) which knocked us out by the end of the evening. I finally finished the remaining uploads for our album edits, which was a tremendous pain in the ass and a tremendous weight lifted.
MONTREAL / TORONTO
Montreal was possibly our favorite stop in all of Canada. We played a cool, intimate show at the Campus club, did an interview, and than partied in town with our new friends. Nevermind that we had to sleep in a Walmart parking lot the night before, and that we were sick as dogs. The city more than made up for it, and our heavy dosing of Robitussin helped us through. Plus, the place is packed to the hilt with the most stunning women in the country. Nice!
Our return trip to Toronto was for a myspace secret show at the Mod Club, a huge space that evokes visions of the Bowery or Irving Plaza in NYC. Its fun to play on a huge stage with a disco ball and flashing lights. That particular area of the city has a London vibe, lots of pubs and cafes with well styled and attractive young professionals hustling about. Our Canadian booking agents later took us out for huge plates of nachos, which put us all to bed.
KINGSTON AND HOME
Our triumphant return to Kingston (only one week later) was amazing. We did the town, reconnected with some new friends, and had an opulent dinner on Dan’s brother in law’s tab. The Queen’s Grad club staff took great care of us, and the five of us squeezed on their tiny stage to rock out up close and personal. Tea, sushi, and open bar was provided. Lovely ladies and gentlemen were in attendance. The band gave a drunk and inappropriate interview which actually turned out to be pretty funny - http://youtube.com/watch?v=fWCxM40KSsw
We said our tearful goodbyes to Dragonette at about 2am and started driving back to Philly. It was great playing with them. Great musicians and people, who have grown to love the absurdity of life on the road. Not to mention a raunchy sailor's sense of humor that could even make us blush. Customs were cleared with no problem (we were only 20 minutes behind the Genesis tour bus) and we got back home at about 9am. This gave us about 20 hours to regroup and sleep before heading to Newark airport for our LA flight.
I’ll post details of our CA adventure shortly.
Matt
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Monday, October 1, 2007
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Losing our Canadian Virginity
Dear all -
After a fun and low key mini tour of South Jersey, we're back on the road and it feels great. We're out for a total of seven dates in eastern Canada. These are our first shows in Canada and our first shows outside the US for that matter, upgrading our status from National Phenoms to International Megastars. Please update your address books accordingly.
We have two new additions to our travel entourage. Ryan Petrillo, the AC Slater to Dan Larkin's Zach Morris, is joining us onstage playing keys, guitar, and singing backing vox. This fattens up the live experience, and frees me up to work the mic solo on a few songs. Its really improved our show, but I feel naked without my keyboard and I'm still trying to figure out all the right moves. Give me a few weeks and I'll find that perfect balance between Freddie, Mick, and myself. We also have talented youth Mr. Jeffery Hiltner on as crew / merch man. He's been quite helpful, and can play practically every song every written on guitar from memory. Seriously.
Other news - the album has been delivered for mix. The revisions by remote process has gone on for quite some time now, and our list of portable studio setups now includes cities across American, canada, in the van, hotels, back rooms, parking lots, offices, and an abandoned restaurant. Everything is sounding sick sick sick, better than we could have imagined. The producers did an amazing job, and now its being sent out to one of our favorite mixers ever, Mark Endert (both Maroon 5 albums, The Fray, Liam and Me). Not too shabby.
So here's our Canada recap to date.
KINGSTON, ON - Queens College
We rocked a really cool show at Queens college with Metric and We Are Scientists, mostly for the incoming freshman class. We got luxury treatment and hospitality from the staff, with our rider reqests (diet cherry vanilla dr. Pepper, dentyne, beer, batteries) largely being met. It was our first show with Ryan onstage, and despite a little sloppyness from our nervous energy the crowd was into it and we had a great time. Kicked it with the Scientists and the student body, and went to bed early as we had all pulled all nighters the previous evening.
TORONTO VIRGIN FESTIVAL
The Virgin festival was quite an adventure. A huge, professional, no bullshit rock show with all the amenities. It was an event we all would have paid to attend as fans, and we got to play! V-Fest was held on Toronto island, so all of our gear and personnel had to be taken across on the VIP artist ferry. We played our set on the Budweiser side stage, but we had the same treatment (pretty much) as all the big bands. We watched bands all day, ate some nice food, drank free beer, and met some great people.
After the show we after partied with some of our new friends, even grabbing a few drinks with members of the Killers and Smashing Pumpkins. We're heading back to Toronto in a few days, and we're looking forward to reconnecting with everyone.
That's it for now. Enroute to Quebec city for our string of dates with Dragonette.
More updates soon.
Matt
After a fun and low key mini tour of South Jersey, we're back on the road and it feels great. We're out for a total of seven dates in eastern Canada. These are our first shows in Canada and our first shows outside the US for that matter, upgrading our status from National Phenoms to International Megastars. Please update your address books accordingly.
We have two new additions to our travel entourage. Ryan Petrillo, the AC Slater to Dan Larkin's Zach Morris, is joining us onstage playing keys, guitar, and singing backing vox. This fattens up the live experience, and frees me up to work the mic solo on a few songs. Its really improved our show, but I feel naked without my keyboard and I'm still trying to figure out all the right moves. Give me a few weeks and I'll find that perfect balance between Freddie, Mick, and myself. We also have talented youth Mr. Jeffery Hiltner on as crew / merch man. He's been quite helpful, and can play practically every song every written on guitar from memory. Seriously.
Other news - the album has been delivered for mix. The revisions by remote process has gone on for quite some time now, and our list of portable studio setups now includes cities across American, canada, in the van, hotels, back rooms, parking lots, offices, and an abandoned restaurant. Everything is sounding sick sick sick, better than we could have imagined. The producers did an amazing job, and now its being sent out to one of our favorite mixers ever, Mark Endert (both Maroon 5 albums, The Fray, Liam and Me). Not too shabby.
So here's our Canada recap to date.
KINGSTON, ON - Queens College
We rocked a really cool show at Queens college with Metric and We Are Scientists, mostly for the incoming freshman class. We got luxury treatment and hospitality from the staff, with our rider reqests (diet cherry vanilla dr. Pepper, dentyne, beer, batteries) largely being met. It was our first show with Ryan onstage, and despite a little sloppyness from our nervous energy the crowd was into it and we had a great time. Kicked it with the Scientists and the student body, and went to bed early as we had all pulled all nighters the previous evening.
TORONTO VIRGIN FESTIVAL
The Virgin festival was quite an adventure. A huge, professional, no bullshit rock show with all the amenities. It was an event we all would have paid to attend as fans, and we got to play! V-Fest was held on Toronto island, so all of our gear and personnel had to be taken across on the VIP artist ferry. We played our set on the Budweiser side stage, but we had the same treatment (pretty much) as all the big bands. We watched bands all day, ate some nice food, drank free beer, and met some great people.
After the show we after partied with some of our new friends, even grabbing a few drinks with members of the Killers and Smashing Pumpkins. We're heading back to Toronto in a few days, and we're looking forward to reconnecting with everyone.
That's it for now. Enroute to Quebec city for our string of dates with Dragonette.
More updates soon.
Matt
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)