Last Canada

And so another Canadian tour ends. It was strange to touch down in Vancouver and see no snow. I still find it hard to believe that you can go from –21, snow and ice to mild conditions in a short 45 min flight. Vancouver is mild and welcoming. The show at the Capilano College is great and it’s wonderful to see everyone here again. I have this wonderful network or friends across Canada now, something not in place in the USA, which I tour in April.I decide I need some help for the last leg of the tour and enlist the services of Chris who begins to look after me like he’s done it all his life. When I forget something he has it, I walk out the door and the car is there to drive me away. My main reason for bringing him on board was the thought of carting box’s of CD’s as well as the guitar, hockey bag etc onto the ferry across to Victoria. However, he goes much further than that and becomes a good companion for the last two shows. The concert in Victoria is in a lovely old building called the ‘Gibson Auditorium’. A great crowd shift my fatigue to the side and we have a good night together. The next day it’s a three-hour drive North to Comox for a small show in the Edge pub. We drive back down to Victoria late at night through torrential rain. Caught the ferry back across this morning and I’m now waiting for my flight back to the UK. Have a few days off there and then begin the tour with Steve. The schedule ahead of me is daunting and I’m not even looking at it, just taking a day at a time. For the most part though, this is a great time of shaking and breaking for me. The new album seems to be reaching out and doing what I hoped it would. It’s early days and the next step will be to see how the press and retail react to it. But that’s just business..the practical..beyond that is this vocation, this journey in music that has already given to me more than I ever dreamed of as a young man. As for Canada; it reinforces so much of what I need to know to keep going, and I stand on guard for her.