Calgary/Banff/Pender/Victoria
How can it be minus 22 when you wake up, then get on a plane, fly right for an hour, find people mowing their lawns in mild weather and still be in the same country?! So it was yesterday when i left Calgary for Pender Island. The show in Calgary was a shared bill with Kelly Jo Phelps and it went great, he`s a talented and nice guy and a superb guitar player.The venue was the Knox church which is a beautiful building. next night we played together again in Banff. Now this really is getting surreal. In the summer i did an interview on my cell phone with BBC Wales from the side of the Bow river in Banff, the river was an amazing Turquoise colour. Today it is frozen solid but still as compelling and i stand and stare for many minutes. The gig is in the Banff Centre and as we drive home through the edge of the Rocky Mountains to Calgary the snow falling just adds the final majic. I really have to pinch myself out here sometimes. Next day ( Friday ) i fly to Victoria and hence the weather change. I catch a ferry to Pender Island which is one of the beautiful Gulf Islands off of Vancouver Island. Before the show there at the local community hall I`m taken to the house i will be staying at and I find that its on the edge of a lake and they have a canoe! So off i go, into the middle of this lake, stunning silence and sun having woken up in mnius 23..extrodinary. The gig goes well as they all have. I dont know how to say this without sounding conceited but each night on this tour i recieve a standing ovation. We (the audience) and i tumble through so much, themes of loss, pain, joy and journey, along with me yelling at George Bush, CNN and whatever else gets in the way. At the end of the night the crowd stand and applaud and i dont know where to look. I would have loved to stayed on Pender Island longer, but this morning i somehow staggered onto the ferry with my huge hockey bag, guitar and laptop. The two hundered CD`s i brought from the UK are all sold but i seemed to have replaced them with even heavier fair..i have no idea how. Tonight i played in the function room of Victoria Rugby club. The Welsh rugby shirt on the wall made me feel at home. I know we lost to England again today but it sounds like we put up a decent fight of it. Its a bit sad though to think that we are relieved to only loose by a small margin. During an unplugged song tonight i ended up singing sitting on a pool table..now thats a first.. and they still stood at the end! As i type this, there is hockey on the TV and a house full of nice folk are jamming on guitars, the UK sleeps. I fly to Prince George tommorow, play one more show and make my way home on Thursday. This has been an amazing tour; Nashville has thrown some great offers my way, the audience in Canada is strong now..the last three years has been a thrilling journey here. I need to go home now and as a famous rock band once said `dream the whole thing up again`. There are gigs to come i know, but i`m going to sleep, write, and then make the next record so i can move all this along. I`m up for it big time.