7:30 am, Dude-Brah Lodge

I wake up after sleeping for one hour, or as Steve Lockhart and I are now calling, “Cyat Nyaps.” I’m really not hungry, but I eat 3 pieces of french toast and a container of yogurt at breakfast, after staring blankly at the cereal collection at the breakfast service for at least 3 minutes and being shocked awake again by one of the camp volunteers asking me if I’m okay. I reply “totally okay” and laugh way too loud and she looks concerned. I order an espresso and play guitar for 15 minutes before attending an awesome keynote featuring Wide Mouth Mason’s Shaun “the road warrior” Verreault, and booking agent Rob “11 pounds at birth” Wright. They are both great speakers and I am thankful because my band I stay wide awake for the entire thing. Following the Keynote, we attend a seminar with Stuart Anderson, a performance psychologist, and he gives me insight on how not be anxious when I play, and another seminar with Producer, Shawn Cole, and he teaches us how to soundcheck properly, which again, I am thankful for, cause at times, we are certainly guilty of a few of his “what-not-to-dos.”

12:00 pm, Mess Hall

I eat a gigantic burrito for lunch and feel pretty awful about it. Dan, Rob Wright and I have a “wrap-off” and somehow, Dan wins. It falls apart while I eat it and get slightly upset and Tyson laughs so hard he chokes on his water. At this point, I am so tired that I am dizzy and nonsensical, as I’m sure we all are. After lunch we get a surprise visit from nonother than Jim Pattison himself, with an introduction by Grant Lawrence. It is great to finally meet the man behind the Peak Performance Project and tell him in person, how grateful we all are. We take a gigantic group picture in the sun and I almost fall asleep on the stairs. We run over our set for a little bit before attending the afternoon seminars, Touring Tips with Shaun Verreault and Agents/Management with Rob Wright and Jeff Rogers, some of the most useful information in 2 hours any band could ever recieve. THREE. GREAT. DUDES.

7:00 pm, Showcase #3

The night featured some pretty amazing bands, “The Never Surprise” who were hilarious and reminded me of The Jealous Sound, one of my favs, way too much, “Lindsay Bryan” our incredibly talented pal from back home along with her band of incredibly talented pals from back home, Mike Edel especially, slaying the bass guitar, “JP Maurice” the best thing I have seen/heard in a long time, complete with a Fleetwood Mac/Katie Perry cover song/mash-up, and finally “Rococode” who were intriguing, dark, professional and had tremendous and brilliant songs. We end the night by setting up our gear on the recently empty stage and rehearse for tomorrow’s showcase, barely able to stand up, but we finish and manage to get about 4 hours of sack-time (and by that I mean sleep, I really do)

Showcase tomorrow, excited! Wish us luck, friends!

– Acres