In the midst of moving I had written 2 songs, but Hadn't shown them to Kristi for approval, and if they passed, she'd still have to learn them. Other than that We had one song I wrote lyrics to in the middle of a sleepless night.
Suddenly we are in powell river, it's monday night, and our first show is on wednesday. Kristi and Mogli had hitchhiked to powell river together and a cranky old lady on the way gave kristi inspiration for a song. She learned my two, and suddenly we had a 4 song set. Throw in a few covers and suddenly we're on stage playing our first show as a band.
When I was living out east everyone said that it was hard to book shows on the west coast, I decided to challenge that concept and put a tour together for Kristi and I, as well as Mogli, Beyon, Thom hess, and myself. Thom bailed because he is allergic to fun, but the other four of us had 6 shows in 6 days.
The First day was the cranberry hall in Powell river. Our friend Ari put it all together, and although we we're skeptical about playing a community hall, he reassured us that people would love it. Ari works at the community radio station, so we did a radio show before the hall show to promote ourselves and warm up. Ari and his partner Danika made veggie and vegan pizza to sell at the show, and everything went swimmingly. I sold almost half my distro at the first show.
The second show was at "Walters house" a small house south of powell river, we decided to do 2 shows in powell river because Ari said a lot of people might not want to drive into town on a wednesday night. Only about 10 people showed up to walters house, but everyone was super nice (not to mention high as fuck) Walter built his house himself and had super awesome woodstoves that heated his water and floors and stuff.
The first two shows somehow made enough money to pay for a full tank of propane, and 4 kids to take a ferry from powell river to comox. The next show was the "Folkpunk campout" in the woods beyond campbell river. We got there to find a giant tarped off area, including a stage, a barbeque, and 3 coolers full of burgers (and veggie burgers) It was quite cold, and a bunch of campers didn't care much for the music, but those who did made the night amazing.
Banjo Joe joined us at the campout for the next 4 shows. Our friend Nathan (from ursula) Met up with us in campbell river and drove the van full of roadies.
The next show was on Hornby island, Another 2 ferries away. Luckily we forgot that a few people were napping under blankets, so only 2 out of 7 people had to pay for the ferries.
Horny Island was the most beautiful place I have ever seen, the show was kind a bust, it started so late and was unorganized enough that nobody really cared for the bands, and for the 2 dollars of merch I sold, I think about 20 bucks worth of stuff was stolen from my distro, but this really nice dude gave us 30 bucks and a ferry card with 130 bucks on it. Also a vanfull of kids from the campbell river show showed up on hornby for an encore, but they all got too drunk and fell asleep before the music.
The next night was nanaimo. Kristi and I were starting to feel like a real band, and our tour was starting to feel like a tour. Kristi, Mogli, Bibi, Banjo Joe, and I we're in our van, and Nathan was driving himself, star, Jesse and charlie. Jesse and Charlie we're our super posi, reckless drunk punk groupies. at first we we're irritated with them because Jesse kept playing sets at the shows without asking the bands or promoters, and charlie got so drunk he pissed all over the floor of the hornby island house. but by nanaimo they had redeemed themselves. Personally I saw so much of my old self in them, that I wanted to be a positive influence instead of telling them to fuck off. and like I said by the nanaimo show they turned out to be cool guys.
Thom hess joined the tour and the nanaimo show was a hoot.When I had contacted the house I had asked one roomate about the show, he passed on the promoting to his roomate, but somewhere in the middle the fact that we were 5 acts on tour got lost and only mogli was thought to be playing. they squeezed all of us in and it turned out to be a good long night of fun. I feel like the firends I made in nanaimo will grow to become great ones. Nathan left us in nanaimo and the groupies hitched to victoria for the last show.
Victoria was the perfect way to wrap up a 6 day mini tour. Old friends and kids who knew how to put on a folkpunk house show. Everyone sang and danced and it was amazing. I think my favorite part is that by the end all of us on tour knew every word to each others songs.
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