Break Out West: Wild nights and wonderful friends

I’ve always pictured this, a festival in a familiar town, in our province, an abundance of great performances all at once, friends on every corner, the celebration and comraderie that comes with an event such as this. It definitely happened, and we came into it confident and ready, barely containing our excitment. A weekend of this magnitude truly has no words. Anything I would use to describe would just understate it (scrumtrulescent) But what I WILL say is that we left with a new found inspiration, new heads on our shoulders, and a memory of something fullfilled within us.

We left early Thursday morning, October 21st. I had slept for 3 hours due to the anticipation of the trip, as always, trying to pack the day with as much as I could while I was on the road. I remained in a barely conscious state for the duration of the drive to Kelowna, useless to all ofcourse, but in good spirits and still able to tell a bad joke or two. We passed a police line outside of the city, which we found out later that Behind Sapphire was stuck at, their van impounded for some reason. Unfortunately, we oculd not help, as our old van was full up, but we text messaged the crap out of everyone we knew coming to Kelowna that day. And what do you know, they made it, safe and sound and ON TIME for their set. The hotel we got was a nice touch to the trip too. We don’t stay in hotels anymore so it was definitely fun for us. There was so much going on that night it was impossible to do it all in full, so we decided to break up the evening. We stopped by the Streaming Cafe to see our brother Christopher Arruda perform a great set and then to Doc Willoughby’s to catch Steph Macpherson. Later, it was The Habitat to catch the end of 41st and Home and Aidan Knight, what a fantastic start! Later that night, we played an amazing show at an Irish pub, O’Flannigan’s, with our fellow Peak Performers Yuca, Vince Vaccaro and last years Peak Performance winners, The Left. We heard covers of Nelly Furtado’s “Powerless,” a beautiful rendition of “Redemption song,” and we also played our version of Corey Hart’s “Never Surrender,” which we think people enjoy… they are usually laughing hysterically throughout the duration of the track so we tend to take this as a good sign. The night ended with us, our beloved James Sutton and our old friend Jim Beam in our hotel room… Dan Ball’s dad was also there, putting out the vibe.

We awoke Friday morning to the silhouette of an angel in our doorway, 9:00am. I thought it was a gift from heaven, but realized shortly it was just James again, as he tossed a bag of McDonald’s breakfast on our bed and then left. Tyson was missing. There was a rumour of those two hooligan’s being out until the early hours of the morning, trying to find a swimming pool or whatever. How this fantastic man who I am now calling “Fast Food Angel Babycakes” gets his job done with the amount of integrity he does, I will never know. “Teach me!” I screamed as he left the room, but he was nowhere to be found. We spent the rest of the day at The Prestige, (how luxurious) at seminars, learning, or as Andrea von Forester put it, “where all the industry professionals were dropping mad science for all of us to pick up… and there’s a wine-mixer later, just like the 50’s!” A tall man then handed me a stack of drink tickets, and wanted nothing for it. We met so many new friends that day, our heads were spinning. Later that evening, we rolled up to “Cush,” a nice little venue off of Bernard that was also a restaurant. The set went incredibly well, as we were greeted warmly by the Kelowna locals, who minutes before we hit the stage were enjoying a late dinner, and from what my experience tells me, the last thing people want to hear when they’re eating a $13.00 flatbread, is an insanely loud rock band… but the show was boss, it was amazing, and some of our friends and fans even came to join us, show-hopping, as we had also planned to do later. After loading up our gear out the back, and taking a few photos for a Kelowna newspaper, all sweaty and gear sprawled around the back door, which I’ve noted over time to be our most vulnerable moment, we hit the bottle’o and it was off to O’Flannigan’s to see the best band in the world, “Treelines.” The night later took us to an overcrowded Doc Willoughby’s to see the other best band in the world “The Dudes.” Somehow, we managed to get in. Let’s just say, Lewis and members of Said The Whale and Yes Nice had a plan and we followed it, and it worked, oh my, did it work. The show, for lack of a better word, was perfect, so crowded you couldn’t even get a beer, just pick a spot and just watch the immense power of Canadian rock and roll with your friends around you.

Saturday morning, we caught up with Adaline and Chris Arruda for some  breakfast and “frisky” morning chatter. Loud and obnoxious, like always, we made friends with the serving staff and convinced them to come out to shows that night. After breakfast, there was a thrift store and a viewing of our new friend, Grant Lawrence, launching his brand new book “Adventures in Solitude,” which if you haven’t checked out by now, I would highly recommend reading it… it is wonderful. I am in love with that man. (http://grantlawrence.ca/writing) Later that afternoon, I left the party. Unfortunately, back home, there was work to be done, my 9-5. It is impossible for someone like me to survive without it and so, must obey. My friend Chris Arruda let me hitch a ride with him back to Victoria, and oh my did we have an adventure, something I will save for another entry. For now, suffice to say, it was sweaty, caffeinated and there was alot of hard-rock vocals.

We look forward to next year, more than ever, and feel blessed to have made friends with so many inspiring people this weekend, we would like to thank the following people:

@adalinemusic, @VinceVaccaro, @ArrudaMusic, @treelines, @theleft, @YUCAmusic, @stephmacpherson, @aidanknight, @saidthewhale, @GrantLCBCR3, @Killbeat, @41standhome, @BehindSapphire, @Kyprios12, @WeAreTheCity, @debrajeanmean, @ROCOCODE, @bodhijones, @thezolas, @ParlourSteps, @bensigston, @yesnice, @KubaOms, @shaunverreault, @gregsczebel, @ChrisMara, @katieschaan, @wearemaurice, @thepeak, @thedudes

We love you all!

– Jeff, Tyson, Dan, Lewis