April 22-25

Well, it’s been a week, and it’s time for an update from the road as Jobfest 2012 continues through the awe-inspiring landscapes and the never-ending daylight of Northern British Columbia!

We made it safely to Prince Rupert on Sunday, a beauty of a day, luckily, to a local Sport’s Bar/Casino called “Chances,” where we joined the locals right on time for a very sad state of affairs involving Vancouver and their hockey team. All of us on the tour vowed never to speak of the event again, but agreed to console each other if there was an inevitable breakdown from emotional trauma, and also, to avoid any involvement in the negative discussions and arguments aroused on Twitter or Facebook. We need to keep our spirits up for the next couple months, so I took this picture when Daisy and Dan discovered a road named after the greatest man alive:

In the ensuing days occupying Prince Rupert, we set up our Jobfest camp at the local mall, a giant inflated monument with a brightly lit stage in the parking lot, next to the ocean and barges rolling in and out of the harbor. The scenery was breathtaking, “Tent-pitching,” one could say, which is a crude new term our all too familiar Dan Ball is presently trying to coin. We checked into the “Inn on the Harbor,” our home for the next 4 days while we work, and the view didn’t disappoint, being only a stone’s throw away, or to be taken from the book of Dan Ball once again, a “Michael Jordan Basketball’s toss,” from the ocean.

On-site at Jobfest was amazing. The weather actually held up beautifully for almost the entire day and for our performances, which, as explained by the locals, was a prayer that had been answered. We got to spend the most of the day with the local kids, and talent, a rock band going by the name of “Mr. Murder,” which I had initially hoped was something along the lines of grind-core, but was still stoked to discover that they played strictly classic rock. Sadly, a small typhoon blew in from the west and threatened to capsize our stage and destroy all of our gear and electronics not covered by tents, which were also lifting off the ground, so we had to shut down earlier than usual.

We had a great, wet, time in Prince Rupert. Not only was the show one to remember, but we also managed to have some good, old-fashion hotel room jams (to celebrate our new friend and sound-tech Bryan’s birthday), take in the local scenery and hiking trails, attend a history lesson and art display at the Northern British Columbia Museum (where we saw head-dresses made from bear claws!) and make some new friends and fans at our new watering hole, “The Moby Dick Inn.” What a beaut!

See you in Haida Gwaii, pals! Hope we still got those sea-legs of ours… if we ever had them, that is.

– Jeff, and those other goofs in Acres.