Gone-Tario … Tales of the 401, Courtesy of The Divorcees
July 20th, 2009 by Alex
Canada’s a wonderful country to tour in the summer. It’s damned hard to beat.
And Stanfest is a great place to kick one off.
Stanfest is a yearly festival held in honor of folk music legend Stan Rogers. Held in the first weekend of July way out at the most Eastern edge of the East Coast (Canso Nova Scotia), it’s a music-junkie’s dream — a open-minded folk festival with a rousing dose of Maritime personality.
At Stanfest, you’re in for three days of food, plenty of RV’s, tents, mud, rain, and seafood, plus a who’s-who of Canadian and international folk talent. It’s one of those places where you’ll hear us and Corb Lund – his band, too – jamming with big shit-eatin’ grins on our faces at 11am under a big top tent to each other’s songs. And that’s after playing the big stage the night before in front of thousands of appreciative fans singing as loud as they can while we, Bruce Guthro, Dave Gunning, and JP Cormier hooted and hollered out Waylon’s “Good Hearted Woman”.
Coming off a hellraising weekend like that, you couldn’t ask for a better time of year to hit the 401.
Here in Divorcees land, the lighter we can travel, the cheaper it gets. Therefore, our real estate is rather limited – mainly and by choice, to the confines of a rented minivan, expertly packed by our drummer Brock Gallant. We’ve proudly proclaimed him the “Tetris Master” as he has deftly figured out how to pack two electric guitars, a bass rig, a guitar amp, a three-piece drum kit, our merchandise, luggage, us full-grown Divorcees, and of course, a healthy assortment of illegal fireworks.
It’s a testament to one’s Tetris-ability when you can travel comfortably in a minivan down the TCH with your outlaw brothers while being packed to the roof.
The 401 has been a great road for us this year; our original launch trip in April made us a lot of new friends, giving us an opportunity to fill the tank and go for another run for ten days in July – the trip we’re on now.
We’ve made a happy return to many great, classic venues in Ontario – bars like Ottawa’s Zaphod Beeblebrox, whose interior hasn’t changed since I first graced its grungy stage with The Great Balancing Act at the turn of the Millenium. Or bars like The Casbah Lounge in Hamilton, where Steeltown’s artistic edge meet, mingle, and push their collective musical boundaries. Or Loplop Gallery and Lounge way, way up in Sault Ste Marie , a favorite stop of ours for a few year now. Honorable mention goes to the River and Sky Festival for pulling off a great first year event, featuring great bands like Ox, Minotaur, 100 Dollars, and Julie Doiron.
Along this ride, we found new venues to appreciate like Maxwell’s Music House in Waterloo; a first of its kind in the fact that it doubles as a music school by day. We also had the pleasure of opening for our outlaw brothers from other mothers The Road Hammers at an absolutely stunning venue called the Stockey Centre, featuring a darned cool Bobby Orr museum with interactive games you can play…including slapshots! And we’d like to put a special thanks out to Al and Lori who invited us to play our first house show. It went over like gangbusters and we’re looking forward to doing more shows like it in the future.
The tour had its share of ups and downs, due mainly to the fact The Divorcees hit the rollercoasters at Canada’s Wonderland! Danny Roy and I subjected ourselves to the awe, majesty, and sheer terror of The Bohemoth at Canada’s Wonderland – apparently, the highest / biggest / scariest rollercoaster in Canada. Hot damn. I thought I was a goner for sure on that thing. Click on this link – http://behemoth.canadaswonderland.com or check out the POV stuff on youtube. Man, what a ride. Whew!
We also had the distinct pleasure of playing with a number of great bands of this trip, those being $100, Sam Coffey And The Iron Lungs, Scott Manery And The Barnburners, Wil, Corb Lund, Mike Trask, plus our good east coast buddies JP Cormier, Dave Gunning, and Bruce Guthro.
Thanks for the great, great times, guys!
So, another tour’s notched into our belts. We just drove a good 20 hours from North Bay to Moncton, so I’m gonna turn in. But stay tuned – more Divorcees news is on route. Who knows? Maybe Texas is just over the horizon…
😉
Al
