Chinese Broccoli

June 8-9: TORONTO TO MONTREAL

The afternoon of the Toronto show starts a bit forebodingly: I'm having coffee with Amber when I realize it might be good to bring the band some sandwiches. There's no food near the venue tonight—but I'm next to Arabesque, an awesome Middle Eastern cafe. We head in there and I order six sandwiches but before I leave, the biggest spring storm I've seen in ages rolls right over top of us: suddenly the lights are flickering, making it hard for the owners to spread hummus and baba ganoush, and suddenly I'm outside helping shag wicker chairs from the outdoor part of the cafe as they threaten to blow into College Street. I come home completely soaked. Screw this. I'm taking a cab to the venue... (did I mention I'm carrying an electric griddle in a duffle bag?)

...the cab, apparently, of Toronto's "fastest driver from point A to point B", a.k.a. the Grey Lion, a.k.a. a near-crazed guy who talks nonstop (when he isn't singing me the alphabet), and is excited we're going to the Phoenix because that's a rock club and he really likes rock and roll music, though not as much as Soca, because he's in a Soca band (of course) and then he starts singing that. As he runs the second or third red light, he exclaims "The city is losing a lot of revenue not charging me for all these infractions!" and cackles away. I feel like I'm on an adventure in bizarro land, only I'm actually in my own city this time.

The plan tonight is to make pancakes live onstage with Awesome Color. I'm not sure where or why we hatched this plan—Minneapolis I think. It's not uncommon for Awesome Color to have guest stars onstage with them, but since I'm not musical at all we decided to play to my strengths I guess and just have me make breakfast.

I haul my gear into the Phoenix, Awesome Color aren't here yet so I say hi to competing tour-blogger and fellow Can't Stop the Bleeding contributor David. He asks me how I got backstage and I say I still have my laminate from the week before. He pauses. "That's not supposed to work."

My planning isn't perfect but the Phoenix pancake party goes over pleasantly: I should've warmed up the griddle earlier, and possibly also brought another jar of pure maple syrup—but overall a few dozen audience members got a fresh blueberry pancake. Besides a huge number of random dudes (ladies don't really seem to attend Dinosaur concerts) I remember giving pancakes to J and David, and my friends Matthew and Zenia who were in the front row, and Pete, and Kieran, Adrian, random members of Uncut, and, finally, to Peter and Fernando, old friends in from Rochester and Northampton respectively who rolled into town mid-set—Fernando as a surprise. Michael noticed his old roommate in the crowd immediately, but played it cool. Michael plays it cool like that.

(Someone would later tell me that a security guard at the back of the Phoenix was overheard to say:
"I heard a girl up there is making pancakes on the stage. Never seen that before. And I've seen a lot of things.")

My pal Matthew, the lifetime Dinosaur fan standing in the front row, also happens to run the best cafe in Toronto, so in the morning it wasn't too hard to talk the band into a pre-Montreal coffee jaunt. Mercury Organic Espresso Bar is a "rock and roll" coffee shop—Matt's in a band himself and is always stoked to have touring musicians come in. This beats stopping at a random Tim Horton's for breakfast any day.

We decided to convoy up to Montreal with Fernando in the Awesome Color minivan and Peter and I in his Miata. The skies couldn't have been clearer and more perfect, the temperature was in that sweet spot, and the top was down. The drive to Montreal is between five and a half and six hours, but much like driving through South Dakota, at least every sign for any possible tourist attraction (or road work) is funny.

12:00: Allison texts me from the Awesome Color van after we pass a tourist sign with two tempting options.
"Do we want to visit the Nuclear Info Centre or Pingle's Fun Farm? Hmmm"

12:45: We stop at a Sunoco in Cobourg. I've only been back on tour for an hour and a half and I purchase a tube of Pringles and a donut. Maybe I should reconsider this idea of going on tour with Magik Markers in the fall. Or go on Herbalife or something in the meantime. (Do they still have Herbalife?)

The weather continues to be perfect and sunny and Peter and I are listening to R. Kelly.

2:15: Should we stop at Maize Quest, or Mrs. McGarrigle's Mustard Hut?

As we pass through the town of Dorion, an incredible swirl of cottonwood issues forth from the sky. It's like driving into a snowstorm, or watching one of those space-warp screensavers.

5:10 Almost in Montreal now. We're still convoying with Awesome Color, who are in front of us, with the windows cracked a little. We still have the top down. I turn to Peter and ask, "Did you just smell pot?" He didn't, but I'm pretty sure. I text message Allison, "You dudes burnin' one up there?" but there is no reply. When we all arrive at the club half an hour later she's laughing. "Nice text. You could smell that?"

Montreal is suffering through Grand Prix this weekend which means there are wacky Euro dudes everywhere and loud Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and St-Laurent is partially closed off so that racecar fanatics can party in the street. Peter is excited to see some sweet rides but he's probably still coasting on the glow of seeing a Lancaster bomber fly across us on the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto. ("That's what we used to bomb the shit out of Germany" — Peter Hughes) Now, it's happened to me more than once—maybe more than twice—with Peter where we'll be hanging out and he'll first hear, then see, some crazy rare warplane go overhead, identify it, and then tell me something like "That's the only one in North America!" or better, "That's the only one in North America and it lives in such and such city and I've flown in it." What are the odds of a plane that there's only one of on the continent flying over the guy who knows what it is in some random city at the right time? Coincidences like that happen to me plenty I guess, but not from THE SKIES.

Dinner is Vietnamese subs from Cao Thang, a place my foodiste friend Mark recommended. A bunch of us grab these coriander-filled delights and try to eat them in a super sketchy lurker park and then give up and run back to the club before someone punches us out.

Backstage, epic pen-pals Peter and Lou are catching up while Awesome Color soundcheck and suddenly Lou says—"Is that J?"—and we all go upstairs to see J jamming alongside Derek. Murph is playing drums set up behind Allison. Lou wanders over to his bass and suddenly Awesome Color are a double-power-trio; it sounds incredible, and my ears hurt after taking a bunch of pictures way too close. This is gonna be great—possibly even better than the Ween show around the corner.

The show is one of the best I've seen on the tour and the room (boxy, rubbery, and somewhat intimate) sounds surprisingly excellent. Awesome Color finish their set with the Lou/Murph/J super double trio infusion, and it's fucking great. Dinosaur's set kinda rages. I kept waiting for them to play something I wasn't that interested in so I could go to the bathroom, but the hits just kept on coming—best version of "Forget the Swan" I'd heard across Canada, and everything else excellent too. Derek and Allison stood sidestage preparing to run out and stagedive at the very end, but as Derek put it, "I was about to go during Mountain Man but I didn't realize it was only two and a half minutes long. And then it was over." Ah well, next tour.

And outside, in the capital of Lurkerville, Quebec, the bands took their leave for the rest of the tour—Dinosaur off to syrupy Vermont, Awesome Color to Boston and then home, and my new Toronto pals Uncut back to the YYZ. With awkward handshakes and waves for some, and hugs for other new friends, I was sad to see it wrap up, too. But I was tired. I had a sunburn. And I was ready for the 24-hour poutine place and to head back to Ariel and Sibylle's and watch their cat and dog have sissy-fights. Which, by 4am, I had accomplished—a perfect night to end the perfect trans-Canadian boondoggle? Absolutely. A prochaine, guys.