Canada

Wow, land of the freeze! Arrived in Toronto on Monday after a mad dash to the airport having been held up for an hour in a jam just outside of Cardiff. Have played three shows so far. On Tuesday I hired a car and drove to Port Dover, which is around 2 hours outside of Toronto. On Wednesday I played Hugh’s Room In Toronto and last night in Guelph.I’m typing this on the flight to Winnipeg. The three gigs have been great, all in different settings but all good and its great to be back playing here. There seems to be a ton of media interest and I have lost track of how many interviews I have done before I got here and since. I have to say they tend to ask more interesting questions than most journalists in the U.K. and pry a little deeper. The new album has been licensed to a label called Jericho Beach on the Fesitval Distribution label. One slight problem has been the fact that the booklet that goes inside the CD has been omitted by mistake, and we have to take people’s name and address’s when they buy the CD in order to send it on to them in a week’s time! I’m happy to say that we have a lot of names and address’s! The weather is the star though. Getting to the gig in Toronto on Tuesday from my hotel was a nightmare. It took my taxi driver an hour and a quarter to drive the few miles across the city. The weather looked like the top of Everest and it took your breath away when you stepped out into it. How anyone turned up at the show was a miracle to me but they did. Some travelled in for four hours or more, one guy abandoned his truck and took the train! Yesterday in Guelph the sun filled the land and the light was intense. I guess for me to come and visit its unique and exciting, but I can imagine how dealing with it on a daily basis for a whole winter must take away some of the thrill. Good to see old friends at shows like Frank Caprice and to be surprised to see Martin and Nikki Woodhead turn up from the UK to surprise me..which they certainly did! Ok, gotta go, we are landing. –27 dowtown I’m told! Have typed a little more now. Great night in Winnipeg. I played a two and half hour set straight through..i didnt realise how the time was going..felt like ten minutes to me. Family and friends of Russ Romaniuk came out to the show..Russ play for the Cardiff Devils. A ton of snow on the streets and a ton of folk at the show..just wonderful. Meeting folk who are in the PQ, chat on the message board, know more about me than I do! It’s amazing to come so far and find these people really into what we are doing. Picking up a whole lot of press out here, big spreads in the newspapers, much more than the UK. I’m about to dash to the airport to catch the flight to Calgary. Tonight’s show is sold out..what a nice thought, might try and make the set a tad shorter though, there are a lot of gigs up ahead.