The Geoff Berner & Rae Spoon Winter Prairie tour took place from January 28th to February 7th. We played a smogasbord of lovely cities :Regina SK, Saskatoon SK, Brandon MB, Winnipeg MB, Kindersley SK, Medicine Hat AB, Lethbridge AB, Calgary AB, Edmonton AB. The last show of the tour was at The Artery in Edmonton, AB and was truly epic.
The audience mouthed every single word that slipped out of Geoff's mouth, and the trio was dripping from sweat on stage. The show was recorded by CBC Radio 2 "Concerts on Demand". Check out the link to hear the live show:
CBC Radio 2 Concerts on demand: Geoff Berner at The Artery
The tour was great, Geoff and Rae were kind enough to let me open up the evening. I played a few songs from the new album "Diaspora" and I was delighted to discover an all new audience. By day 3 we started getting into the swing of things and the van's touring psychology got into full swing. I was still searching for my edgy rock star character that would get me my place in the van. It wasn't helpful that I had a lousy general use of sematics and that I often got called on by Rae or Geoff for being so awkwardly politically incorrect! But after arguing with them it was in my Quebecois and Polish blood to be so dramatic and over the top, they began to warm up to me and thus at day 6-7 I metamorphosized into the label that would most get me support in that van: The hot, sexy eastern european/quebecois half breed violinist from Alberta who liked to swear like nobody's business and be purposefully "politically incorrect" all the while not insulting the current marginalized discourse of Jews, Queers, Transgendered People and other Visible Minorities. In retrospect, I was drinking a lot of whiskey and spending an average of 4 hours everyday in the van with the gang. We ate together, crashed together, breathed the collective consensus of creativity together - always with an edge - while floating down the ribbon of Highway #1 in a silver bullet minivan.
One of the big musical discoveries was the band YO MAJESTY (check them out at http://www.myspace.com/yomajesty4life ). Before every city we'd make sure to put some YO MAJESTY on. And sometimes upon entering the venue of the day, the result could be leathal...both Mr.Rae Spoon and I were at times accosted because of our ass shaking to the song "Bootie Klap". Although we didn't mean to, apparently we were suggesting to some men that we might be one of the few fuckable "females" in the night club. Eventually, we stopped our shinanigans.
At around day 10, our touring van was starting to smell bad. Yay! ;)
As a coping mechanism to displacement and identity deconstruction between days 3-7 of the tour, I found a little cactus in Winnipeg and dragged it along with us while we toured through Saskatchewan. At first, Geoff was sceptical about me bringing a plant into the van, but after my childish tantrum, "Cacti the Cactus" was assimilated into the family. But by Medicine Hat I could no longer bear the responsibility of taking care of a desert plant in such Siberian Canadian weather, and I gave it to our hostess in Medicine Hat, Ina. It was a sad parting moment because Cacti had become such an intrinsic part of our lives. From days 8 - 13 of the tour, Rae, Geoff and Wayne & I often commented about how much we missed Cacti. There were moments when I was labelled as an abandonner of small helpless plants ;)
I leave the tour stories at that, kids. We had a lot of wonderful moments on stage, and on the road.
Stay tune for our Briga R.O.C. "tour" of Ontario, coming up soon ;)
