Tour Diary – Sherbrooke, Quebec (June 29th, 2012)

Last night we moved on to Sherbrooke, the Mellencamp crew still travelling between Sudbury and PEI. We were due for a let-down following the high that we experienced yesterday in Parry Sound. I stepped off the bus in my Canada t-shirt and was promptly yelled at from a passing car flying a fleur-de-lyse, “Fuck la Canada”. Oh right, I’m in a foreign country. When I returned to the bus to change my t-shirt Jared was also returning to change his Bruins shirt, he too had felt the hex. A few minutes later, just to reinforce our better judgement, a guy in a wheelchair comes cruising by the bus flying a quebec flag and wearing a Montreal Canadiens shirt. If it’s Friday it must be Quebec. The day could have disintegrated from there, but we all adjusted and enjoyed the “out of town” experience, using our pigeon French whenever needed. The venue, which we sat in front of all day happened to be on a very quaint street, with lots of typical French cafes and bistros. There was also a laundry-mat down the street which is always a bonus and to top it all off the venue was a really good sounding room. There wasn’t much of a turnout, but they were an intense and passionate audience. We played with the looseness and the confidence (and a touch of the exhaustion) of a band playing its ninth show in nine nights. It was a very good night.