For the month of March, we're traveling through the cold, Hoth-like climate of Canada with Mobile and Inward Eye on The Sound Of Fiction Tour. We're going to have updates throughout this time about a variety of things: the usual funny anecdotal triumphs/dismays; photos of our attempts at rivaling Motley Crew; our take on how to enjoy The Canadian Winter - since we're going to be surrounded by it (see here and here for a preview); video clips, when we can sneak them in. Exclaim has agreed to host our tour blog - so you can tune in to Exclaim to amuse yourself and keep up-to-date. Both Mobile and Inward Eye are also going to be chattering, give their blogs a try for another perspective. We'll see you on the road! Bend Sinister

Check out these exclaim.ca articles on the bands:
News: Bend Sinister Hit the Road with The Sound of Fiction Tour
No Future Review: Inward Eye
Pop Rocks Review: Bend Sinister - Stories of Brothers, Tales of Lovers

So, we are finally back from tour. We’ve been on the road since March 1st and it has been a great time. The most beneficial part being our showcases in Toronto where we’ve forged a great relationship with Colin from the Agency Group to be our booking agent in Canada, and with another fellow Andrew from TKO to start booking us in the USA. We also had a chance to hang with our management and label folk and get the ball rolling on lots of great things for the future.

It was also a great time hanging out with the Mobile and Inward Eye guys, and I wish them the best of luck on their return back East. I believe they have another 4 or 5 shows left heading back.

We arrived in Vancouver yesterday around 2 and after unloading the gear and dropping everyone off I got into my house round 4 to crash on the couch. I wish I had a couple of days to do nothing and unwind but I am writing this from my job, as an AV technician at Simon Fraser University, at 7am in the morning as I have returned to work the first day back. It’s funny to wake up at 6am again after being used to practically going to bed each night around this time.

Our next show is at the end of April at the Telus Ski and Snowboard Festival, and then we are going to be touring in the States and playing the Dawson City Music Festival in July.

There is lots more to come and I’m excited to get back to it, but at this point I’m content when I get off work today to sit back, watch a couple of DVDs, and nap the day away.

Thanks for listening!

-Dan

Frank decided to whip out the video camera during our trek through the Rockies and managed to capture some of Banff’s natural beauty. Enjoy!

A singers worst fear is losing your voice while on tour. I cannot stand canceling shows and it’s only happened to me once in our touring past.

I haven’t written a blog for sometime now on tour because I came down with the flu in Regina and this very fear was going to become a reality. I started to feel really ill after the show and we left shortly after our set to try to get some extra sleep. I had a horrible sleep and came down the next day with the fever/chills/cold and all. I decided that I would attempt to make it through our next 2 shows which were Saskatoon and Banff before we had a day off to recover in Calgary, but as the eve of our Saskatoon show at Amigos approached my condition worsened rather then improved and I was a walking zombie that wanted nothing more then to crash.

With a bit of a dilemma on our hands, we concluded that if I could at least make it through the Saskatoon show, things would maybe be better the next morning… I had a bottle of Buckley’s and a bottle of Whiskey and the hope was to perhaps numb the senses with a few shots, enough to get through the show and then call it a night.

Anyway the plan worked and we crushed in Saskatoon, but waking up in the hotel the next morning my sickness had escalated to full body-aches and cold-sweats, and I decided we had to cancel Banff that evening which was an 11 hour drive from Saskatoon and a Sunday night which isn’t my favorite to play. We decided alternately to drive leisurely to Calgary and we stopped halfway at a small town called Kindersley. When we got in I holed up in the hotel room in a cot with 3 sets of covers and the ice bucket filled with ice water and a cold compress on my head. I took a bunch of cold/flu drowsy pills and tried to finally kick the fever that was plaguing me for the last few days.

Waking up the next day I was successful and the flu was gone but I was left with a lingering cough/cold. We played Calgary on Tuesday and again I had my bottle of Buckley’s on stage to sip between songs, and though it was a great show and I was past the flu, I was still stressing over the fear of losing my voice. As any singer knows, when you sing at full intensity when your voice is weak or you’re sick, you damage your voice and it proceeds to get worse and worse each night ’til it disappears all together.

We drove to Edmonton the following day and got ready to load in to the show, but then I had to make a tough decision and call the show. I knew that if I sang in Edmonton while still being sick with my voice already at 50% I would ruin my voice for the rest of the tour and we still had 4 shows to go. If I rested for one more day, I would probably be able to get to the end of the tour.

Anyway this is what we did, and we made it through Kelowna, the Junos in Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo, all great shows to end the the tour, my voice improving each day instead of getting worse. It’s hard to prioritize on the road and cancel anything, cause each show is a great opportunity, but vocal chords are an annoyingly uncontrollable beast, and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

-Dan

So after Disappearing down to Texas for a bit, we’re back on the Sound of fiction tour! We apologize to everyone in Calgary for missing the show. We were stuck somewhere in Wyoming because of a blizzard. Luckily we found an old cowboy bar and hotel to keep warm in! I’m posting a video from the Montreal show. This was the last song of the night, and I think all of us we’re feeling quite happy by this point. The other video is us screwing around in Texas. Enjoy.Anders

 

So we’ve finished our set, so has Mobile and the small town country-themed bar transforms into dance club mode. On-leave army buffs from the neighboring base near their peak of rowdiness. One such character purchases a pair of panties from the merch table and pulls them on over his pants and proceeds to use this as a kind of icebreaker/conversation starter with the local ladies. Failing to take note of this rapidly deteriorating scene I decide to stick around. The venue has provided a generous rider, and myself and the rest of the band are intent on taking advantage.

A little while later, on my way out the bathroom, I pass a stranger. He’s short but wide and on his arm is a very inebriated young lady. The drinking age here is 18. I probably shouldn’t have said anything and just gone and found a bouncer but this kind of thing is not something I can really let slip. I see red and don’t think straight. Fortunately, I am not a violent person. Even after realizing that I’ve just been punched in the face I stay true to my inner pacifist. It’s not very effective in this situation though. Luckily at this point the bouncers turn up. I get some ice on my lip but despite the ice it swells up and causes the following days hangover cure of chicken soup to dribble out all over my shirt.

A lesson learned and a new found hatred of a certain small town.
Henry

Kenora is now my favorite place on earth. Well, that’s a slight overstatement, but we sure had a great time there. We played our show on Monday with Mobile and for a Monday it was one of the best shows around, and the booze was flowing. The locals got the dance party started and everyone was in a great mood.

We decided, since we had another night off on Tuesday, to stay and soak up the gracious hospitality for one more night. What I thought would be a casual night of recovery, watching a movie and relaxing turned into a raging St. Patrick’s day house party with Joseph taking care of the entertainment. There was also another fellow there playing guitar who drunkenly claimed that he was the guitarist from Loverboy, but I was a bit confused at how he ended up in Kenora at a small house party playing cover tunes.

After Kenora and our trek to the ice roads, we played Winnipeg and Brandon and just arrived today in Regina. The boys are all passed out upstairs at another relative of Joseph’s with whom we’re staying, and we’re already 3 hours late for load in at the club.

The last night in Brandon was a weird show. Seemed the majority of the audience was army reserve guys drunk out of their minds, but the hospitality was the best we’ve seen and the party went ’til 5 in the morning. We also got our full rider and a meal at the fancy restaurant where Joseph and I each got the $50 steak on the menu. Best steak I’ve ever had, and it was 20 ounces of pure angus prime… it was so big we couldn’t even eat half of it or we would have gone comatose before the show. I would have documented the affair but at the time it was the last thing on our mind.

For the first time on tour we all had our own hotel rooms and everyone was keen to get away from the snoring and grinding teeth sounds that come from 5 dudes sharing a room. The rooms themselves were also suites equipped with living rooms and kitchens so after the show the party ended up in Joseph’s and my room with all the Mobile dudes and company broin’ down.

What seemed like a nice road-bands bonding experience led to regret this morning when check out arrived at 11 no was was at all ready to leave. I got everyone organized but Dana was the most off his rocker and lost his guts in the hallway of the hotel to the surprise of a maid nearby. I guess you could say that’s rock ‘n roll, but I feel bad for the maid, and with Dana I just pipe up the chorus of Radiohead’s ‘Just’ until he freaks out and we all laugh.

Anyway, we’ve got 8 shows left on tour and we’ll be home soon. I kinda wish we had tonight off cause we’d all just melt into our beds and call it a day, but instead we’re gonna head to The Drink right now and crush some minds. as long as they show up early enough!

Yep,
Dan

So Joseph mentioned that his cousin lived in Kenora and we might be able to crash, but little did we realize the wonderful extent of their hospitality. This is why I wanted to focus this blog on the joy of staying with family on the road.

There’s probably some people out there that would question why would we want to leave the party lifestyle of hotel rooms for a calm, quiet evening with family. The truth is that an evening of a home cooked meal and nice big house to stay at with friendly faces wins hands down every time.

When I mentioned to Matt from Mobile that we were coming to Kenora a day early instead of staying to kick it with them in Thunder Bay, he was initially surprised but after mentioning the family card, he nodding in understanding. I think if you ask any musician, no matter how successful, they will still say they love the family stay.

Here in Kenora we arrived to a plate of freshly killed moose sausage and a round of dirty gin martinis. After 3 or so of those we switched to beer and were pleasantly surprised by a fridge loaded to the brim with Guinness, Killkenny, Sapporos, Mooseheads and more. We also each got our own space to sleep and, low and behold, a hot tub sat on the porch just waiting for us. Having moose steaks for dinner was a treat, especially after looking at a photo show of the actual take down of the moose the fall before.

My favorite part of the accommodation was the fact that they had 2 dogs! I love these furry animals and it was nice to hang out with the l’il dudes. You can imagine my surprise however when Joseph’s cousin told me the story of how these two dogs a few weeks before had tracked and killed a deer on a walk in the forest. It was crazy that these little dudes who were so happy to hang out, had the animal instinct to go after a deer and destroy it. I guess that’s why we were eating deer for dinner?

Today we plan to drive out onto the ice lake, which apparently has a highway down the middle that goes all the way to the states. I am just excited to drive on ice so I’ll try to take some pictures. Apparently when you get to the states, there isn’t even a border crossing but only a phone booth that you stop at, tell them your license plate number and the names of the passengers and then you carry on your way.

First thing across the border, a bar and liquor store chalk full with great deals. I guess that’s why they built the ice road in the first place. Nevertheless all musicians should take note, if you need to sneak across the border November-April, go to downtown Kenora then its only 1 hour across the ice highway and you’re home free!

Anyway, we play Kenora tonight which is a Monday night, so we’ll see how it goes, but we’re all just happy to have a beautiful place to stay with a kind family, who are treating us well!!

Talk to you soon!

-Dan