Nanaimo BC / Tofino BC

Woke up early Saturday morning in Vancouver and caught the ferry to Nanaimo. Flavio was playing drums for us for the day, I hadn't met him until the day before, so I got to hang out and get to know him a bit. Awesome guy, super nice, killer player. At the hotel we had a few hours to kill before the festival, so I split and grabbed a quick hot tub. Met Tim from Protest the Hero and we sat around talking about touring, recording, and just music in general, and then decided to jump in the lake behind the hotel and go swimming. Haha, that lake was so, so dirty.

Drove to Big Easy Music Festival and met up with Mike Noga, best audio engineer on the planet!! He would be my soundman for every single gig I play for the rest of my life if I had the choice. Chill gig, only played a 30 minute set. Great crowd, the festival was fun, pretty well organized with a stacked bill. I didn't meet any of the promoters or organizers, but they did a great job with the everything.

Noga and I left early right after for Tofino. Hilarious drive, epic. Made it to town in time to catch Current Swell play the Legion (they played Big Easy earlier that day as well) and met up with Lacey, Melissa, and Tim. One of the guys from Current Swell and I went to high school in Saint Albert at the same time. Crazy small world!!

Woke up the next morning at ground-zero of the craziest house party ever. The house was empty, but what I could deduce the night was a success. Didn't know where I was (forgot I was even in Tofino at first) and couldn't find my phone, my luggage, or my suit jacket and dress shirt. Just my jeans, the shirt on my back, and my saxophone. Getting to an internet cafe was probably my best bet of getting a hold of Noga and Lacey, so I walked down main street and found a nice cafe to try to hide. Standing in line, I was tapped on the shoulder by someone pointing to a poster on the wall next to me and asking, "is that you?" There were "Missing: One well-dressed saxophone player" posters all around town. Pretty much everybody in Tofino knows who I am now: I'm "that guy."

(I guess Noga also got himself lost that night. Mike-Lacey-Jonny Hour is a gong-show!)

Spent most of the day on Galen's houseboat taking in the sun and working on my sunburn. In the evening we went back to shore and walked around the trails and hills behind Tim's house. Made our way to the radio station Tim works at and took over the control room for an hour or so. Good memories, including on-air gang-vocal karaoke along to Weezer's "Say It Ain't So," and Sebastian, the electronic/dub DJ from Paris with the craziest on-air voice ever! Being dark and close to midnight, we decide it's a good idea to go back to Galen's and have a giant fire on the back of his boat. Noga made the scene twice that night, first by falling in between the houseboat and the barge and getting half-soaked, in the process messing up his ankle, and a second time by disappearing in a canoe and going to some island where he lost his glasses. Fantastic!

Slept in the next morning, and hustled to go surfing with Tim. I've never been surfing (or been in the ocean), but I felt good about my chances. (How hard could surfing be?) Although the waves kicked my ass and Nature pretty well destroyed me, I managed to catch two waves. I caught them, but could only hang for five or ten seconds before bailing hard. (So sore.) Pretty gnarly, I guess. The whole time (and for the rest of the day) I had Planet Smashers' "Surfing In Tofino" in my head.

Noga and I went to Sobo for two of the best margaritas ever, and then met up with Lacey, Tim, and Galen for some farewell sushi. Heading home to Edmonton for a few weeks downtime. Can't wait to open for English Beat at Commodore in October. Writing new material and thinking about recording the new album soon, excited to see what happens with that. Maybe a show in Tofino (Vancouver-Victoria-Nanaimo-Tofino?) soon for more surfing!!