Tour Diary – Victoria, BC (April 25, 20130

Upon setting foot in Victoria we were overwhelmed with the colours, the verdant green, the freakin' flaming tulips. A week of traversing a land locked in the dull gray of late winter made us forget that there are parts of the country where Spring has actually arrived. This large island off the west coast may be the only region where the season has changed, but at least we've found it and, man, does it feel and smell good. We had two perfect Spring days wandering around the streets of Victoria, which is probably the best time to visit this city. It gets a bit too overrun by the tourist trade in the summer and in winter the weather can get pretty miserable, but in springtime it is one of the more beautiful cities in the country: with the Island Mountain Range as a backdrop to the inner harbour and the tulips and cherry blossoms erupting on the Legislature and Empress Hotel lawns…..pure postcard material.

It was a beautiful venue tonight, a least it was beautiful to look at….not so beautiful if you are trying to perform with electric instruments and a drum kit. Another church. If there are any budding concert promoters out there, please heed a word of advice from someone who has been doing this for a long time…as a rule, churches suck as concert venues. Yes, we made a very famous album in a church, but the big difference is that we weren't trying to project the sound through a PA to 800 paying patrons. Stained glass, wooden pews, plaster and stone walls, an enormous metal pipe organ behind the stage, may all look spectacular, but they are really lousy surfaces to throw sound against, it all comes slapping back in your face and bounces unpredictably around the venue. According to reports from those in the audience, Jared did an excellent job at making the room sound as good as possible. On stage, we had a workmanlike show. In this type of room its very difficult on stage to hear the dynamics of the band so there is a lot of thinking, instead of feeling, going on. But I think we did a good job at making the night work. We all dug in and didn't let the show get away from us….and it appeared that most of the audience went home happy.

Pete's ipad sketch of the DC3 in Whitehorse.