6/6/09 Mountains of the Moon Festival, Nelson, BC

My day started off with 11 awesome hours of sleep, and I awoke wondering if the rest of the band had made it OK. (Steve, Johnny, and Charlie were traveling on later flights than Brian, Melvin, and me). Not only did they not get to the hotel until 10am that morning after traveling all day and night, I find out that Charlie was not admitted into Canada and was stuck at a hotel just across the border. What could have possibly caused this snag?

(a) Charlie is a Russian spy
(b) Charlie is a registered sex offender
(c) Charlie tried to smuggle in contraband everything up his butt
(d) Charlie could not pronounce "out" and "house" or "eh" properly when grilled by the border patrol

I quickly rebounded from the shock of the absence of my usual tour/meal buddy, and spent the afternoon exploring Nelson alone. I had some great breakfast at a local restaurant recommended by the promoter and then took a long walk around the town and down by the lake. The city is very quaint, and the scenery is breathtaking.

Later that day, the promoter took us and Portable Payback (Jurassic 5 offshoot) out for an early dinner at a Greek/Italian restaurant. Still slightly disgruntled from the previous evening's ridiculously long wait for food, we were all pleased to find the salads/appetizers arriving after 9 minutes and the entrees after 22 minutes. Woohoo! I became a little chummier with the Jurassic 2, and learned that Soup has a weakness for Dawson's Creek, and Mark has a weakness for whipped cream (stealing all of it off of his neighbor's dessert plate).

We headed over to the festival around 6pm, driving about 30 miles (err, 48 kilometers) to Salmo. The festival site was located on a sort of plateau, surrounded on all sides by mountains. As a resident Midwesterner for the past 7 years, the scenery around here never ceases to be completely and totally entertaining to me! Not to mention, there were dogs everywhere, so I upped my dog-pet count in a serious way!

The production was running late and by the time we got on stage, the sun was almost down and it was insanely cold...."Cold as a witch's tit," to quote Mr. Steve Kimock. We hit a further delay when Melvin realized that his Hammond organ was not playing in the proper key due to a weak power generator. We spent a few minutes troubleshooting before finally deciding to just tune the guitars and bass to match the organ, which was almost an entire whole step down. I wasn't prepared for the impact this would have on the music, as every song sounded totally strange and slightly off center from where my ear wanted it to be. But it was definitely interesting!

The show went well despite cold toes and fingers and strange tunings. We had a fun "Footprints" and another exploratory "Long Form Part 4" that melded into a samba-type groove at the end. (Apologies, but given the absence of Charlie, I don't believe this show was recorded!).

After the show, we hustled back to the hotel to thaw out. Round 2 at the festival is tonight and the weather is forecast to be just as cold. I think I'm going to go out and find some hand/toe warmers!