The past two days we have had off, which is never a good thing from a mental or financial point of view. We were hoping to find a gig somewhere between Vancouver and Edmonton but no luck. We spent the first day off in Vancouver and I have to say that there is something wrong with that city. I know it’s not politically correct to come down on Vancouver, it is often listed as one of the best cities in the world, and Vancouver-ites are passionate about their home. There is no doubt that it is one of the most beautifully located cities in the world and access to that beauty is quick and easy. If you are a cycling, kayaking, skiing, running, fishing, outdoors enthusiast, then this is the city for you. But the downtown core has this nasty vibe to it. The street life is so centered around drugs, (hard-core drugs) and all of its by-products like prostitution, petty theft, robbery, assault (and onwards…) that it is very hard to enjoy a walk through the city streets, there always seems to be someone lurking.

Edmonton on the other hand is about as neat and clean as a city can be, the only problem is that there isn’t a whole lot of energy on its streets: its all a bit square, grey and empty. The city certainly isn’t lacking in money or attention, it just isn’t quite happening (yet). That said, we had an amazing night tonight, thanks in large part to the very enthusiastic, very vocal, very large, very un-Canadian audience. So maybe I’m missing something, maybe there’s a part of town where the cool cats like to gather….I just couldn’t find it in the core.

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It’s been about four or five years since we’ve been in Calgary and I am shocked, overwhelmed, pleasantly surprised, enthusiastically enthusiastic at the transformation of this city. Calgary use to be that little city in Western Canada that always wanted to be more than it was: a kind of sleepy, slightly regressive Cow-town. The Calgary Stampede use to be the only reason to visit this city and that was kind of pushing it. It appears that the decades of petro-dollar investment is finally bearing fruit. This is now a vibrant, exciting city: a great place to walk around with lots of street life and interest. It still, of course, has the added cache of being only one hour away from some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Of course, the expansion on the outskirts is completely out of control, but that is one of the prices one pays for this type of boom.

Tonight’s show, like the Edmonton gig, was in a church. When you enter a church you never know what the acoustics are going to be like. The church in Edmonton had great acoustics, good in the audience and good on-stage the Calgary church…not so much. Actually it was a lot worse in soundcheck, but a very nice sized audience helped to suck up some of the transients. It was an odd crowd tonight: very polite, appreciative but not to vocal….very Canadian. We had a lot of fun and chased a few people out of the church who were looking for something that we’re not. On to Portland.