That’s all. Just amazed again. There are 5 pages of Tour stored here (look up) if you have interest in starting at the beginning. Because we started immediately into the NEW record process when we arrived in Toronto – I didn’t even take time to digest it.
2 highs back to back.
Life is good.
by the way that was over $50,000. I still can’t believe it.
Published by November 25th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsIn case your wondering what happened to Hugh’s…
Published by November 25th, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsOk, I know, I still have the Hugh’s Room final show to post. Then there were a couple of other dates I did with War Child as the focus with the Peel Region School Board – 4800 high school and junior high school kids one day and 1700 the next. A remarkable thing happened on the second day that I am going to get to… as soon as I can edit the video footage.
Then there was the gig at York U…
BUT! Since I’ve arrived back in Toronto I have been writing grants, planning, setting up, renting space, finding the right musicians and finishing up the writing for the new record. Yeah, a little side tracked. Sorry.
We have been recording since the first of November. I’m pretty thrilled. The plan was to keep you all informed daily while we were in the studio but as usual – the days are too full and the focus is the music so I will have to give you all the overview soon.
And here it is, the final province of the tour… British Columbia.
BC was beautiful from beginning to end. Starting with lovely Golden where the weather couldn’t decide whether it wanted to rain or not but held out until our busk was finished… To sunny Victoria where my 12 year old friend Sarah surprised me by showing up and delivering over $300 she had raised for the tour by selling homemade earrings and bracelets all summer!
Nat Jay joined us in Kelowna and played the rest of the gigs with us. Added a nice new dimension to our newly founded habitual touring ways.
My family clan took over in Vancouver at The Mill when both sides of my west coast relatives showed up and my cousin Kevin played bass on a couple tunes too! Very funny to look out at 50 percent family in between the strangers.
All in all, BC was a bitter sweet wrap up to an incredible journey. We were tired and ready to go home but at the same time, very sad to stop. Once you work that hard for 2 months doing good work, there’s a certain part of you that just doesn’t want to stop!
I would like to thank every person that listened, every person that threw in money, every person that fed us or put us up, every person that gave us a hug, every person that just said thank you, all the media, the musicians, the friends, the family and EVERYONE else who made this epic fundraiser possible AND an incredible success. In the end, once we had arrived home and played our homecoming gig at Hugh’s Room… Together (including you and you and you), we raised a little over $50,000 for War Child Canada. An INCREDIBLE feat. War Child was beside themselves and very grateful. Here’s some examples of the kinds of things $50,000 can do… It can build TWO schools… It can build THREE youth centres…. It can even give THIRTY mothers (of children affected by war) a micro loan to start their own personal business to support themselves and make their children’s lives better. All of that because a couple thousand people across this great country decided to be generous. To stand up and throw whatever they could afford into a white bucket. Amazing. Thank you.
We did it.
-Liam
Believe me, I’m very aware of how late these last few posts are… Buuut, they finally coming! We’ll just pretend that I’m still on the road, shall we?
Alberta, the wild west. We had a very moving, busy couple of days in Alberta. Started it all off in Edmonton with a CBC radio morning show. If you’re gonna get an early start on the day, might as well do it right, eh? One of the lovely CBC peeps, Chris Martin, booked our noon hour busk for us across the street from them in Churchill Square. Thank you Chris! We had a lovely show in the square, packed up as fast as possible and zipped to CKUA for another live interview. This time with the fantastic Monica Miller. CKUA is probably the best independent radio station in the country, check it out HERE. After that, we had enough time to grab a quick nap and then it was time for a sound check at The Haven Social Club. The old man, Dan and I played a really fun show there and eventually collapsed into bed. Post late night pizza snack, of course…
The next morning we were off to Red Deer to play at the Michener Centre. It’s an incredible facility for the developmentally delayed. They have a little over 300 people of all ages living there. One hundred of them showed up for our show and treated us with rapt and enthusiastic attention. We’ve never played to a more appreciative audience. A seriously mind blowing experience. They also raised more than 300 dollars for the cause, which was seriously moving to say the least. Later on, we played a show at the local music club ‘The Vat’. It’s owned by Terry, a great music lover and a good man. Thanks for hosting us Terry! After the show, we drove into Calgary and grabbed a few winks before our next big day.
Calgary started with some early morning Breakfast TV. A couple of other interviews for the station and eventually we scooted down to 17th to set up our noon hour busk. There was a lovely crowd for the whole show. Some constructions workers even ate their lunch while they watched. Very lovely day. But we weren’t finished yet, we still had to play two sets at a private party on the patio of the ‘Melrose Cafe’. They threw a great party with food and wine, auctioned off a BBQ and gave ALL the money to War Child!! A perfect finale to 3 of the craziest days on the tour if you ask me…
Anyway, here’s the video of course…
-Liam
Alright, well, I’m home in Toronto now and yet our little vlog updates are still stuck in friggin’ Manitoba!! Much apologies, I’m on it… I’ll do my darndest to finish telling this crazy tale.
So, we stopped in Regina first. We played on a great little stage at the F.W. Hill Mall. Our new friend Lori Ann Kirby helped us book the lovely venue. When we arrived we were greeted by Chuck who worked for the city and he immediately bagged some meters for us so we could park the RV close. So many thanks to Lori Ann and Chuck for all their help… It was a beautiful day and we got to crank the little HK Audio sound system from L&M to full blast for the first time, which was super fun. As per usual, we packed the gear and hit the road ASAP. It was time to head to Saskatoon…
In Toon Town we met up with our great friends Jack and Sheila, who fed us exorbitant amounts of delicious food and perfect espressos. Jack is our coffee guru, we get a lesson about art and science of espresso making every time we visit. The next day we played at the incredible Farmer’s Market. Big thanks to Molly Johnson for mentioning our show on HER CBC Radio 2 show that morning! Many people came out because they heard through her… The food was spectacular, Dan and I had the best homemade ice cream that we’ve ever eaten! With homemade sour cherry sauce and real whipped cream on top… Sooo goooood. There were many dancers and many kids gettin’ down too. One incredibly generous family threw in $400 dollars in twenties. Amazing. Jack and Sheila fed us one more fantastic meal before we hit the road and we waved so long with a tear or two in our eyes. Thank you Jack and Sheila for being such lovely, generous friends.
Annnd this is the point where we cue the video!
-Liam
Man, Fred Penner is a good dude.
We started our day in Winnipeg with Breakfast TV at 8am. I surprised myself yet again by somehow managing to sing that early in the morning. I wonder if I’ll be able to pull it off every time… Next thing was to head down the road (literally, only like 200 feet) to The Forks so we could suss out where we were playing and set up. Fred came down early to teach us a couple tunes, which was super cool! We got fed amazing cinnamon buns from an organic bakery that had a mini stone mill to grind their own grain! So, so, so friggin’ good. Then the kids started to gather and we knew it was time to play. Fred killed it and Dan and I had a great time backing him up. Kind of surreal to play ‘Proud’ with Fred Penner… I have to make a shout out and thank you to all the media that showed up. The support was truly incredible. Global, City, CTV, CBC TV/Radio & The Associated Free Press… Spanks guys. As per use at the shows we do at Farmer’s Markets, we loaded up with grocories and left Winnipeg a bunch of full bellied, happy people.
Fred Penner is a national treasure… and so is his entire family. Thank you, thank you, thank you Fred!!
Roll the video, Bill…
-Liam
hey everybody
I know, i know…late on postings. VERY late. to catch y’all up on what we’ve been up to, check out this lovely video of our ventures through the great Ontario north. Huntsville, with the lovely help of Martina Schroer, was a beautiful success! The church was a little ‘live’-sounding (i.e. super sensitive and potentially VERY loud), but provided a lovely ambiance and vibe. It was an educational experience for a drummer such as myself, to say the least. Karla (one half of duo Jacob and Lily) sang and played wonderfully, and we compared RV rigs and talked a lot about babies. BABIES! Our two shows in North Bay were very intimate and relaxing — big thanks to Brett Greene for all his help putting the shows together for us! Woo! Bob Bale hooked us up big time in Sudbury as we performed for some happy people in yet another church — Liam quickly realized that he needed to properly explain the context behind his tune ‘Cross Yourself’, just to clarify some things. Thanks for putting us up, too Bob! The Sault treated us very well with an enormous venue, the Roberta Bondar Park and Marina — we had to block off half of the space with the ol’RV in order to control some sound! We even got to jam with our friend Rusty at the local bar that night! Liam finally bought a new skateboard in Thunder Bay, which was quickly followed by a great session at their local skate plaza by the waterfront. AMAZING park. After falling on our faces, we continued to eat a delicious Finnish-style breakfast and performed in front of the Hoito Restaurant, internationally famous for their perogies. We ended the night at a national treasure, the Apollo and drank coffees and ate nachos with guacamole . Thank you Sheila for everything!
Well, talk soon everyone — ciao!
-daniel
Sept. 1st. We are headed to Red Deer this morning to play at the center at 1:30. Open to the public. See you there. Michener Services is part of Alberta ’s supports and services for adults with developmental disabilities. Michener operates 48 homes on a 300-acre site in Red Deer, Alberta. The Roland Michener Recreation Center supports 354 adults providing a range of recreational, social, residential, and medical services.
Later on this evening you will find us at the VAT. 9:00PM.
More updates coming. We are doing so many gigs and so much media right now that we are a bit overwhelmed but will catch up as soon as we can.
After we blew the tire out in Kingston we found out that we needed to replace all four of our rear wheels… Not good and not cheap… When you’re running a cross country fundraiser, a big chunk a change ain’t that easy to come by – no, it wasn’t in the budget! But Consumers Tire in T.O. came to the rescue and gave us a real break on the tires (wholesale) and even installed them as their gift to the tour! The owner Larry tried for hours/days to get us some free tires from Michelin but it didn’t end up happening. A big shout out to all the Consumers Tire. peeps for being lovely light hearted people.
Cue the video please…
-Liam
Salut friends!!
Daniel here, writing things in a Starbucks in Winnipeg. Really nice here, got to experience more of the city — hung out with Fred Penner and his fam!!!! That’s right…amazing stuff (more coming soon, obviously). BUT, in the meantime, these shows were SUPER! Rob Lamothe and his clan hooked us up with a beautiful night of merriment and food and music at Flyer’s Cafe in Dunnville (Rob is the Prince of Dunnville, and Liam’s heart). Hailey Gillis laid it down with some soulful vocals and sour cream cherry pie was the bomb. An all-girls camp called Stella Puella raised over $330 towards the charity!!! Amazing — thanks, girls!!! Click on the pic for more.
Brampton was a great treat — the city of Brampton and Peel Region Police Force donated $500! Rogers TV came out to cover the show — it was definitely the tallest stage we’ve been on thus far. BIG BIG BIG thanks to Konrad for hooking us up with the space to play — such a beautiful spot for music, can’t wait to come back!!! Toronto did not disappoint — nice hot day in Kensington, lots of peeps came out to play — including our lovely music family, Ben Whitely and the Alcorns (Coco and Lindsay). We threw it down in front of Courage My Love, the hippest spot in all of Kensington (check it out when you get to town). Sandy and Mary from CBC Fresh Air hung out, as well as ET and Sirius Satellite Radio’s George Christie. Wish u were there — see y’all in the north, then it’s out West from here!
-daniel
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