Thursday, August 13th/09, The Social Center, Vegreville AB

We hit the prairies today. I was happy, to get out of Alberta and on the road, moving forward. I personally love travelling along the flat land of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I find it easy, non-threatening, and the path as straightforward as it will ever get. The towns, sparsely populated but abundant. Farmer’s fields, crops of whatever product, silos, tractors, cattle, that whole thing, a great and proud life. I actually had a dream the night before this one, where I was walking through a wheat field with a good friend of mine, not talking, just slowly strolling through miles of field. It was so serene and calming, I woke up feeling refreshed and contemplative of why I had the dream. My band and I came to the conclusion that it was a combination of my love for this person, wheat products, farmer’s markets, organic produce, prairie land, quiet-time and my random and aimless mind at work. I think they are right for the most part, they know me so well, it’s strange. I also listened to to “Carpenter’s” Law of the Land while we were driving, which is something I do every time I’m coming through this way, kind of a ritual. It got me to thinking if the boys in Carpenter wrote their album while they were travelling through here as a different band. I am inspired by this.

We played in Vegreville tonight, where, oddly enough, my uncle Gary grew up. I was not aware of this until I spoke to my mother recently about the show (I call her once in awhile, she’s my mom, you know) Apparently, asw a child, he had dreams of being an astronomer, probably envisioned this while staring at the world’s largest Easter egg, and he was! Amateur, but still, had a $15000.00 telescope in which I perused the stars through as a kid. He was also a paramedic by trade, and a damn good one too. While heading to Vegreville, we made a stop in Edmonton, at their local modern rock staion Sonic 102.9, to do an acoustic version of our song “Let’s Get Sentimental” and a short interview for their “Farm Fresh hour” which airs this Sunday… I’m hoping some of you reading this will tune in and enjoy! We hit up super store for some fine President’s Choice products and ended up in Vegreville at around 6:00pm, late of course, we were always doing that. It didn’t really matter, the show didn’t start until 7:30 and we weren’t playing until 8:30. We played to a small crowd of kids who blaintantly were at Warped Tour (so read the t-shirts) like us, the day before. They were probably expecting something of that quality, which I hope we delivered. The show was good, and we played with some great bands, again, Mapping The Escape, and also, Jay and the Lovebirds, who really are the happiest dudes on the planet. To me, they exhume sunshine, especially their drummer, who is also named Lewis, and we had a wonderful time with them. They made us feel like their family, which is always welcome.

The drive continued, on to Regina. We made it just past Loydminster when we got tired and pulled over, into a farmer’s canola field. We slept in the van, and it was nice, oddly comfortable. We were convinced that we would be woken in the middle of the night by some big farmer dude, shoving a shotgun in our mouths with his hell-hounds, telling us to either move or have relations with his daughters, something like that. We talked until we fell asleep, and we slept well.