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Wednesday July 16 Victoria.
I know, I know... I've left you in the lurch. I caught a cold on the way home and have been moping. Muffin. Anyway, the last show of the tour went just as well as the rest of it if not better! It all started in the afternoon at The Ironwood where Kent and the Iron Choir were competing in a battle of the bands with the Steve Coffey Band from Calgary. In typical Gruff fashion we decided to show up in support of our friends and paid a visit to Zellers to pick up some blank white t-shirts which we lovingly altered to various terrible statements of style and joined the cheering section. Kent and the Iron Choir won the battle of the bands. We're pretty sure it was largely due to our shirts.

Cheering section! Gruffians and McAlisters
After the battle of the bands we hung around at the Ironwood for the rest of the afternoon until our set. The place was totally packed! It was awesome. We got the boys up to sing "Hallelujah" with us and retired to the audience to have a beer and waltz a little bit before joining them on stage for "That's No Way to Say Goodbye" a lovely end to the evening. We loaded up not long after that to head back to the McAlister's house for some traditional Iron Choir vs Gruff wrestling before heading to bed.

Sunday morning came early. We got Luke safely back to the airport and turned ourselves towards home as well, taking a day to get there with a stop in the Okanagan on the way. We're home now and are getting some rest before we head out again at the end of the month.
Saturday July 12. Calgary

On the banks of the South Saskatchewan River
We're back in Alberta now and have been for a few days. Today we're getting some nice relaxing in at McAlister house before heading down to the Ironwood where Kent and the Iron Choir are competing in a battle of the bands before our double bill there later tonight. The show at the Yard and Flagon in Saskatoon was great. It rained all day and we were worried we'd have to move the show inside but the sky cleared right up just in time for sound check and the evening was absolutely beautiful.

The roof top patio was packed with people and the lovely people of Paddock Wood beer who sponsored the show brought some kegs of what turned out to be lovely beer by our standards and we all had a great time.

We had breakfast one more time at our Saskatoon breakfast place with our new Saskatoon friends before bidding farewell to our new favourite prairie town and headed off to Edmonton Alberta on Thursday morning. We weren't quite sure how our show in Edmonton would go after being assured by the venue owner that no one was going to come since we'd never played in Edmonton before and it was the summer time. We tried to remain optimistic even after getting off on the wrong foot by being an hour late due to some kind of "Police Emergency Detour" on the highway just outside of Edmonton. Things turned alright though! A handful of wonderful people came to the show and spent most of the first set on their phones calling friends and telling them to come down before they missed us. The venue owner fell in love (and at a loss for words to describe the genre we fit in decided "amazing" was the best one) and introduced us to a board member from the Alberta Contact Conference which we'd applied for and didn't get. Well... they had some cancellations and now we're in! We're all looking forward to the next time we can make it to Edmonton including the venue owner!

After Edmonton it was off to High River for a return visit to Gitter's Pub where Banjo Boy was created last time we were through. High River and the Pub seemed both as we left them and we had another wonderful night there before piling into the van and heading to Calgary late last night where we managed to sneak quietly into the McAlister House unlike last time.

Wednesday July 9, Saskatoon

Tonight's the big show on the roof top patio of the Yard and Flagon Pub in Saskatoon. Everyone we know in Saskatoon (albeit not many people) have assured us that the roof will be totally packed, and are kind of wishing they'd open the roof tops around the pub for more fun. We're really excited to play on top of building no matter how many people come to party with us. We've spent our days off resting, checking out downtown and hanging out at the coffee shop. Wall-e was just as wonderful as we expected and Jenny and Phaedra can now routinely be heard imitating robots. Last night Lucas called up the rest of the Deep Dark Woods and we met them and even more Saskatoon friends at the Yard for a bite to eat and a pint before heading over to Lydia's to play some pool.
Burke and Lucas from the DDW and Adam on the roof top patio at the Yard.
Today it's more like what we expected Saskatoon to be like: hot and sunny (as opposed to the delightful cool and rainy that it's been so far.) Lucas is going to take us on the nature walk he's been promising to take us on since Mortlach before we come home and practice up our new and adventurous song on which Adam plays fiddle, Terri plays bass, Jenny plays banjo, Phaedra plays guitar and Lucas plays drums before heading over to sound check at the Yard.

Monday July 7. Saskatoon

It's half way through our first summer tour and Jenny and I feel like we're sitting in a coffee shop in Victoria right now. The coffee and tea are great and it's overcast, cool and although it's not raining right now it has been. We had breakfast at the best breakfast place (which unlike Victoria didn't have a line up) and are now all spread out over town doing what we do best: passing time.
The tour started out in Victoria on Canada Day at the Gorge Canada Day Picnic which was super fun because lots of people came to the picnic and it was the first time us Gruffies were reunited since Jenny and I left for tree planting a couple of months ago. You can watch a great little video that an audience member made of Holes in My Jeans here:
Watch the video!
After our set at the picnic we loaded up into the ol' Midnight Goose and headed straight for the ferry and onwards to Falkland BC to spend the night. The sun went down on the Coquihalla and we were passing Merrit just in time to see the fireworks light up over the town from the highway above. We rolled into Falkland at about half past midnight to sleep at our planting headquarters. Turned out planting had just wrapped up earlier that day and there were tree planters everywhere! We managed to find places to crash and caught a few hours of sleep before the house woke up at work time and we all went for breakfast. After breakfast we loaded up, said goodbye and headed for Calgary where we got some guitar hero in at our gracious host's house before we went to the airport to pick up Lucas Goetz from Saskatoon, a pedal steel player who we kidnapped for this tour. Our first show was in Nanton at the Auditorium Hotel which we love more every time we play there.

On our way from Nanton to Lethbridge we made a little pit-stop at Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump where we went for a little walk, took in the scenery and marveled at the idea that the ground is largely made up of crunched up bison bones.

Our show at The Slice in Lethbridge was once again super fun. There were a whole bunch of people in the audience, and they were just as ready for a party as we were. We debuted a few new songs that we learned earlier in the day in Nanton and according to the people of Lethbridge, they're good ones so we're keeping them. On Saturday we left Lethbridge for Mortlach Saskatchewan where we got to be part of the First Annual Saskatoon Berry Festival. We missed the pancake breakfast and the parade but heard that they were great and they had a lot of people come out. Our set was later on in the evening when a lot of the people had gone home but there were still a bunch of people having fun and dancing which was more than fine with us. Our hosts had all the musicians over for a bonfire jam after the last act where he dazzled us all with his yodeling before we broke into a raucous rendition of Extreme's More Than Words which marked the beginning of one of the best bonfire jams we've ever been to.

The next day we had breakfast at the Mayor's house before heading to Buffalo Pound Provincial Park with Andrew and Amy, our lovely hosts, to go swimming in the lake and have a BBQ. It was beautiful and sunny until we got in the lake when we noticed a large ominous rain cloud approaching. We weren't phased though and moved our BBQ under a tree while it rained around us. Once we were all full of burgers and soda pop we loaded back into the Goose and headed for Saskatoon where we are now spending our few days off with Lucas' friends who are super fun. Tonight we're going to see Wall-e!

Lethbridge skull shirt friends!