Lots to love about being on tour
A quick recap
We just wrapped a tidy little ten-day tour in Canada. The Vancouverite in me wants to specify Eastern Canada, but the Haligonian I am now knows that we ventured Central.
We started in New Brunswick with our pals Absolute Losers. I love Saint John, and Fredericton is cute, but it doesn’t hit like SJ. Sorry about that. Change my mind!
In Ottawa, we hung out with my dog-niece Beryl and ate pho. In Toronto, I took the big master bedroom and made Clare sleep on a very thin mattress in the office. I am a domineering and threatening bandleader.
Shows in Hamilton, Saint Catharines, and Toronto were heart-warming and life-affirming. I got the sense that we were all grateful for the opportunity to invent and inhabit each night in each other’s company: audience, artists, crew.
Montreal may have been my favourite night. My connection to Montreal waxes and wanes with the number of friends and acquaintances that happen to be living there at any given time, and right now that connection is strong. A lot of old friends coalesced into the bubble of that night, which made me feel full of love.
Being on tour has a unique momentum. In the van, we chatted about the combination of structure and freedom that it presents. We all agreed that the simplicity of tour creates a cocktail of daily novelty and routine that feeds our neurodivergent chipmunk brains: get to the venue, play the show, repeat. Try to eat food and drink water. Don’t get too distracted. It’s a simple, repeatable pattern with endless variation.
I returned the rental van yesterday, and walked out of my house this morning to find it once again parked outside my house. I don’t know what kind of weird coincidence went down there, but it was a bit on-the-nose of the universe, if you ask me. Tour forever!
Thank you to everyone who came out to a show (especially you, new newsletter subscribers!). I am so excited to have met all of you.
My next show is on May 29 in Charlottetown, PEI, in support of Mo Kenney. You can find tickets for that here.