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Saturday August 16, Victoria BC

Gruffians and The Wild Turkeys at the festival in Red Rock
We decided to fly from Vancouver to Winnipeg instead of to Thunder Bay because it was considerably cheaper to do so even including the extra gas and van rental. It also opened up the possibility of a show in Winnipeg. We landed in the afternoon and had a wonderful home cooked meal at our new friend Nathan's house before heading over to Candor Music and Books, a great little music store/venue where our show was. The opening band, Pepper Laing and the Lonestar Killers, were really fun and a lot of our Winnipeg friends and fans came out making it a great night all around. The next morning we loaded up and headed off to Falcon Lake to stay the night with our friend Jesse from the band Crooked Brothers. We weren't able to figure out a show together this time around but are working on it for October so look out! Falcon Lake was gorgeous and we had a very restful time there picking wild blueberries for breakfast crumble, eating another homecooked meal (two in a row!) and jamming tunes in the living room into the night.
On Thursday morning it was off to Red Rock Ontario for us. Not having been to the Live From the Rock festival before we didn't really know what to expect and were horribly disappointed at first. The first thing we did was find our motel where we were hoping to do things like have leisurely showers with two people per room, sleep in our own beds and finally have access to internet allowing me to update the tour journal. Unfortunately, the motel, which reminded us a lot of a tree planting motel in Northern BC, had no internet whatsoever and behind door number one we found so much stale cigarette smoke we couldn't even enter the room. This meant we all had to cram into one motel room again and share a bed and sleep on the floor... sigh. At least we're used to it. Our attitudes changed the next day as we ventured down to the festival for our first workshop of the weekend where we met our new friends The Wild Turkeys from Sault Ste Marie. The Turkeys are a band of five guys in two sets of brothers who dress like cow folk and play really great original music. You should definitely check them out. We had a few workshops (and beers) with them over the weekend. We also got to hang out a bit with Oh Susanna who writes some of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard and were delighted when she asked us to be her back up band for a couple of songs on her Saturday night mainstage set. We thought this was going to be as close to a good mainstage spot as we were going to get as our mainstage slot was on Sunday afternoon but then just after we finished jamming the tunes with Oh Susanna, the artistic director came over and asked us if we'd cover for the musician after Oh Susanna that night because he was stuck in an electrical storm in Toronto. We couldn't believe our luck!

Watching the Wild Turkeys at Red Rock
On Sunday we played one more workshop, got a rousing game of ultimate frisbee going and then dunked our heads in the tap because it was so hot, ate bbq with the Wild Turkeys and then went home to our motel (where we had two non-smoking rooms now) and watched tv until we fell asleep.
The next day it was off to Wawa for a return engagement at The Rock Island Lodge at Naturally Superior Adventures. We were a little nervous at first that no one was going to come but by halfway through the first set, there were lots of bums in the chairs. It was also the night of the meteor shower but only Adam could muster the energy to stay up to see them. The next day was our big show in Sault Ste Marie with our new friends The Wild Turkeys and our friends from last summer, The Good Lovelies. We got to Sault Ste Maire pretty early and hung around for the afternoon eating pizza and having a beer with the Turkeys before heading down to Loplops for the show. We're never really sure what to expect from shows at Loplops and have had great shows, one really terrible show and mediocre shows there. This one was awesome. The Turkeys brought their own sound system so we were all set in that department. Then they played a killer set and so did the Good Lovelies and although it was getting late, most of the audience stuck around for our set too. The place was packed for most of the night! And to top it all off, we managed to get all three bands up on stage to end the night with Old Crow Medicine Show's Wagon Wheel. That's 12 musicians on stage! It was great. After the show we headed over to the Westside Cafe where we managed to consume the most poutine I've ever seen consumed by ten people. We're talking pounds of the stuff. I didn't have the camera and am hoping to get my hands on some poutine photos from the Good Lovelies but until then, you'll have to use your imaginations....

We left Sault Ste Marie extremely early on Wednesday morning with the idea that we'd stay the night in Dryden on our way to our flight in Winnipeg the next day. By the time we got to Dryden in our Midsize XUV (excuse me while I go off on a tangent.. We have a stand up bass in our band. It's big. So, we make sure that vehicle rental places will give us minivans when we rent from them. We've been given SUVs before and they just don't work as well. This time, we were given a Midsize XUV. It's not even an SUV. It's more like a glorified car with delusions of grandeur. The only way we were able to fit everything in was to have two solitary confinement seats in the back and the bass on top of the luggage up one side of the vehicle. There was not a hair of space between all kinds of knees and dashboards/seats. But. It did have this fancy feature where you could plug your ipod straight into the stereo and press a button on the steering wheel to tell the van what you wanted to hear when it so politely asked. That was fun. But the van was still not a van.) Anyway.... we were in Dryden. By the time we got there, our bums were so numb already that we figured we might as well drive all the way to Winnipeg. We rolled in to our friend Kevin's place in the middle of the night and set up camp on the living room floor. The next day we lazed about, ran some errands, had tea with Nathan's family and headed off to the airport for an uneventful flight back to Vancouver. We spent Friday in Vancouver kicking around town before our show at The Railway Club with Fish&Bird and Kent McAlister and the Iron Choir. The show was super fun and lots of people came out to see it including Corbin Murdoch and the Nautical Miles whom you might remember from Madlib fun earlier in the tour. Terri had to get home early the day after the show so after an hour and a half of power sleep we set off for the ferry where we caught another hour and a half of sleep on the boat before rolling into town (and bed) on Saturday morning. Don't worry about us, we're tough like that, and professionals.
Now it's home for two whole months! Until next time...

Friday August 15, Vancouver BC.
Wow. I know it's been an incredibly long time since I've added anything to the journal and the tour is almost over but hey.... better late than never right? That is of course if anyone out there is still paying attention..... What a whirlwind it's been! I left off after the Mission Folk Festival and at this exact moment in time, that feels like an eon ago. We went from Mission to Vernon where we played a house concert at our favourite Vernon house. It was kind of rainy all day but we all remained optimistic that we'd be able to have the concert on the back deck as planned. We set up all the sound gear (with garbage bags over the speakers... a trick we'd learned at the festival) and the people started arriving. The rain started gently falling during our set break so we decided we'd best play before it started raining any harder. Well... needless to say by the end of the second song of the set, the sky had opened up and it was just pouring down on us. We quickly packed up the sound gear and moved inside to sing a few more songs acoustic in the living room for the die hard Gruff fans of Vernon. It sounds like the Vernon house concert is only going to get better so if you're around that area, be sure to keep your eyes and ears open. We started an email list at the concert but if you signed up on it, we don't have your email because the list got rained away....

Banjo Boy and the Harmonica Hero in uniform
After Vernon it was off to Falkland for a night at the pub. There's something about driving into Falkland and seeing that giant Canadian flag up on the hillside that feels so right. Almost like coming home. It was wing night at the pub and whether it was for the wings or us Gruffs, the place was packed. It was the first time we've played at the Falkland Pub not in the middle of tree planting season and we were delighted by the number of locals that came out to see the show and stayed all the way until the end because the rowdy tree planters didn't show up and cause a ruckus. Jeff and Julie convinced us to do the longest and most delayed encore we've had yet during which we played the General Store for the second time of the evening by special request and another round of mysterious Pils ended up on the stage. All in all it was quite the night. We also picked up a set of matching Falkland Pub shirts which we sported all over the country.

From Falkland it was waaay up to Prince George for a show at a place called Art Space. It was supposed to be a double bill with Headwater but they decided that they didn't want to go all the way up to Prince George in case no one came. So we decided that we'd do it anyway even though it was a little late to do any promo... it was about time we made an appearance up there. Well... 22 people came. Not a huge turn out but a delightful one and not too shabby for our first time. And Brendan 'the tauntaun' Krieg of the Iron Choir just happened to stroll on it and take a seat in the front row right in the middle of a song about the Iron Choir... a magical experience if I've ever had one. After the show we set up Terri's big tent in a friend of a friend's back yard and Adam and I crashed out while Jenny and Terri went off to the Rum Jungle to stir it up PG style.

j-skid and p-skid rocking out in Falkland Pub shirts at Artswells
The next morning was exciting. We packed up and headed to Wells for the festival there which we'd been looking forward to returning to since the last time we were there. If you're unaware, Wells is a tiny tiny town up in Northern BC just down the road from Barkerville. (and Quesnel on the other side) It's an old company town that is full of artists. Well, full is about 400 in the winter if you're lucky. The festival is put on by our friends Paul and Julie and is just about one of the best things ever. This year we set up our tents in the basement of Paul's artist shack because it was looking like rain. It looked a little like Gruff squatter land but hey, at least we were dry. It was an epic weekend full of long long nights around the campfire, sunsets and rises, and great music all around. We made new friends and saw old ones we hadn't seen since last time and got to hang out with a bunch of our parents who made the trek up for the festival.

We spent most of our evenings hanging out at the Community Hall stage watching the musicians (I even had a Dude beer with my dad.... it was gross. the beer of course.) until the electronic dance bands got up on stage which was our cue to round up the country/folkies and head for the van for a beer before lighting up the camp fire or searching for random trampolines to guerilla bounce. We were also lucky enough to get a set on the Barkerville stage in a tiny old room in downtown Barkerville. It was probably one of our favourite sets ever being that we were squished onto a tiny stage in a tiny room full of all sorts of people looking out onto the street of Barkerville in the rain with horses and miners walking by.

someone pushed the eject button
After the festival we drove from Wells to Vancouver in a convoy with our new best festival friends Corbin Murdoch and the Nautical Miles. Corbin and the NM had picked up a book of Madlibs on their way up to Wells and had been telling us all about them all weekend long. We decided to do some inter-van Madlibs by having them text us the list of types of words the Madlib called for and us texting our words back. Then at every pee/gas stop we got to hear two versions of the same Madlib. While stopped for dinner at the farm just outside of Cache Creek where they make good pies (I always forget the name) we stumbled upon a brilliant idea. We were going to make Madlibs out of our own songs. The Gruff would pick a song and remove certain words, collect replacement words from the Nautical Miles, plug them in and then sing the song. The Nautical Miles would do the same thing. It would be hilarious. We all met at a little park like thing in Hope along the river and hunkered down with a guitar, a pie and a bucket of ice cream and sang ridiculous songs amidst raucous laughter as the sun set over the Fraser River. A moment for the history books.

Team Nautical Gruff at a Madlib stop in Clinton.
Upon finally arriving in Vancouver we promptly fell asleep in preparation for the second leg of the second leg of our summer tour which would begin very early the next day at the Vancouver airport. You'll have to wait a little longer for this portion of the journal....
Tuesday July 29, Vernon BC.

onstage at Mission Folkfest
It was a week or so at home and then back on the road for us. First stop on this whirlwind of a BC/Ontario was one of the best places we've been. That place was the Mission Folk Festival. We arrived in Mission on Friday afternoon and got all set up at our wonderful billet's house and headed back down to the festival site for our mainstage show that night. We made a whole bunch of new friends pretty much instantly and formed our Misssion Folk Festival posse. A crew of frisbee throwing, soccer playing, singing and dancing friends who ate lots of popcorn, drank a fair share of beer and brought tears on all over the various stages all weekend long.

Saturday brought some super fun workshop stages starting with a vocal workshop with Chic Gamine from Manitoba, VOCO from the States and Black Umfolozi from Zimbabwe. We were blown away by the singing we got to be on stage with and were left shaking in joy after we all sang a rousing version of Wagon Wheel to close the workshop. Our afternoon workshop with Rani Arbo and the Daisy Mayhem, The Gallus Brothers and Plough was also super fun and left us and most of the audience humming and singing all the way to main stage for Saturday night's show.

On Sunday we were lucky enough to be asked by CBC Radio 2 if they could record our set for Canada Live (a show on CBC Radio 2 of live concerts). We were positively tickled pink and super excited. All went well and it's going to be on the show probably sometime in late September. Yay! After our show was finished we hung with our posse some more and finished off the evening dancing to Black Umfolosi and jamming at the after party before heading home to sleep.