Blog

We flew from Toronto to Calgary this week. Calgary was pretty cold when we got there and was sitting in the minus 20’s range the entire time with tons of snow on the ground. But as a Canadian, I’ve learned not to focus on cold weather. It eventually goes away.

We went to Cowtown to perform at a special conference on Thursday and ended up staying until Saturday because we performed a public show on Friday night.

Good times were had by all.

The conference went very well, but Friday's experience was just as interesting.

On Friday we performed at the Calgary Songwriter’s Club. It’s a little club that you have to ring a doorbell to get in and then go through 2 locked doors and down a flight of stairs. We were told it was in the “rough parts” of town but we weren’t scared because we had Janet with us.

The venue is really cool. There’s a true sense of community among the songwriters in Calgary. It’s not a non-profit situation but it felt like people were just contributing what they could to make the place thrive.

Songwriters and those who love them would just come in and volunteer their resources. When the men’s washroom was out of toilet paper, a patron just walked into the back closet, found the rolls, and stocked the can. One woman brought candles for the tables. Nobody asked her to, she just wanted to because it added to the ambience. And if you didn’t have a physical resource to bring, you could always share your talents with the room. After our sets, the open jam lasted until the wee hours. People shared their talents performing rock, pop, and country standards as well as their own creations.

And the question The Essentials kept asking ourselves was: Why doesn’t something like this exist in Toronto?