We just finished a tour of the East Coast of our home and native land and thought we'd briefly blog about the trip and the things we discovered.
First discovery: Canada is bigger than it looks on a map, especially when you're driving. And even a rational-minded person like Janet can get a little loopy when you stick her in the very back back seat of a van for 9 hours at a time.
Second discovery: the people on the east coast are as friendly as you can possibly imagine. They even stop when they see you trying to cross the road on foot. As Torontonians, of course, we instinctively suspect some sort of trap like – perhaps someone is going to jump out and take our wallets, or a police officer might jump out of the bushes and give us jaywalking tickets. But no, they're just really nice. We all still have our wallets, and there are no tickets inside any of them.
So we started the tour in Halifax, NS and we brought along our secret weapon, beatboxer Luke Stapleton. Luke's known as the Human Record and can make all kinds of crazy sounds with his mouth. He can even get a song out while doing so. Here's an example of him doing the national anthem in front of the Parliament Buildings. The beatboxing and voice is just him with no camera tricks.
We did a Breakfast TV segment in Halifax and then went on to Kiju's in Sydney, NS where we found out that we're opening for Dan Hill! Well, many weeks ahead of time, but that still counts doesn't it?
We snapped a pic in front of the world's largest fiddle which had actual strings but we didn't bother playing it since we presumed it would be grossly out of tune after being outside for so long.
On to PEI. We crossed the famous Confederation Bridge to get there – an almost 13 km masterpiece! We loved Harmony House, a very cool venue where we opened for Rose Cousins, Bruce Guthro, and David Myles in the same way we opened for Dan Hill.
Owners Kris and Melanie are so warm and friendly but they can't control the weather. We got hit by a big snowstorm and passed a lot of ditched cars on the drive wondering how many of them were just trying to get to an acappella concert. We lost some of the crowd because of the icy drive but did manage to hook up with our former sound tech, Bob Picard who lives there now! Here's us giving Bob the famous "Essentials Lift" (patent pending). After the show, Jo3 got Thom on the ol' dismembered finger gag since there was a hole in the table. As Thom lifted up his menu, voila...a lone digit! Thom was a little creeped out and queasy but somehow still managed to suck back his Gahans effortlessly.
On to New Brunswick, which isn't very new anymore but they say they're keeping the name as is.
We did an in-store performance at Backstreet Records in St. John where we met the owner, Gordie. Very cool record shop. Sure he's got the latest CD's you'd expect but he also had tons of old vinyls so a salivating Thom picked up a few of those and Jo3 picked up a Spinal Tap DVD since his old one was wrecked and he needs to go to 11 on occasion.
That night we played at Vintge Bistro near St. John. This is a very musician friendly venue.They have entertainment every weekend and the owner, Carol Ann, hosts the acts in her gorgeous cottage which is guarded by her friendly 9-year old boxer, Buddy, which Dan harassed (Dan's version is "played with") relentlessly.
Then we headed back to Halifax. We realize it's backtracking, but that's how we roll. We took this shot of us with a giant blueberry who we just thought looked pretty cool. I mean, how often do you get to have your pic taken with a giant blueberry? Fiddles, sure, but blueberries?
We played a fun night at The Carlton, a cool music room with great food, and an old school-mate of Jo3's came out bringing with her, the very first autograph he ever signed in Grade 8. He was playing bass guitar at the time with a couple of chums and claims he may go back to this signature one day since it saves ink.
At this point we started zigzagging our way back home playing a bunch of schools along the way. You may think schools aren't very glamorous but we actually enjoy playing them for a couple of reasons.
First, the kids are really appreciative that you got them out of class for an hour and will cheer loudly hoping that you'll play encore after encore and continue to peck away at their math or history studies.
Second, kids are honest. There were a couple of songs that we were wondering if we should rearrange or cut from our repertoire list and when you see kids are starting to fidget then it's time to rearrange a song or cut it. We had good times at Joseph Giles (Dartmouth), Connaught Street (Fredericton), Stanley Elementary (Stanley, NB), and Glen Falls (Saint John). Great kids, and great staff all around.
On to Montreal. We didn't have a gig in Montreal, we were just using it as a stop over before we hit Ottawa. At our hotel, we saw a band unloading their gear. They were from Toronto. They were going to the east coast and sure enough, they happened to be playing soon at Vintage Bistro and The Carlton, so we opened for them too. Small world! They're called The Jessica Stewart Few and they're super cool.
Ah, Ottawa. Almost home. We did a few ditties, including our version of The Beatles' Blackbird on Breakfast TV and then did another school show at Blossom Park (we can't get enough of these kids) and then performed our regular gig at the Rideau Carlton Casino. This is now Friday - only one day to go!
Saturday morning Luke, Janet, and Jo3 walked to the Parliament Buildings. That's where Luke did his beatboxing trick and Jo3 performed the first ever single-handed "Essentials Lift" (patent pending). Janet claims his arms were starting to shake as Luke took the pic but Jo3 claims that, um...that there was a very low frequency earthquake undetectable by any scientific gadgetry that only bass singers can feel. Yeah, it's pretty lame.
The Speck brothers slept in since we got a late check out at the hotel (thanks to our friend Rachel Kooyman who pulled a string or two or…maybe three) since they were going to attempt a late night drive home.
We then did the casino where we threw all caution to the wind in our final set and had an "all request" final set of the tour. We'd offer up two options to the crowd and sing whichever song they wanted us to. At one point, we even offered up a 45-second Luke Stapleton drum solo *or* Janet Turner attempting to do the moonwalk in high heels.
Voting was done by cheers and it was a tie so Luke starting beating out Billie Jean while Janet did the "moonstep" (we called it that because she could only do one step in heels). Then, while Luke carried on, Janet ditched the heels and moonwalked across the stage. MJ would have been proud!
Then we drove home. Yup, we left at 1 am arriving in Toronto at about 5:30am. We just wanted to sleep in our own beds and get out of a van for a bit and the Specks were feelin' up to driving.
And that's pretty much how it went.
Thanks to all of the people who supported us along the way and to all of the new friends we made. We'll make it back out east...one day!
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We did a Breakfast TV segment in Halifax and then went on to Kiju's in Sydney, NS where we found out that we're opening for Dan Hill! Well, many weeks ahead of time, but that still counts doesn't it?
We snapped a pic in front of the world's largest fiddle which had actual strings but we didn't bother playing it since we presumed it would be grossly out of tune after being outside for so long.
On to PEI. We crossed the famous Confederation Bridge to get there – an almost 13 km masterpiece! We loved Harmony House, a very cool venue where we opened for Rose Cousins, Bruce Guthro, and David Myles in the same way we opened for Dan Hill.
Owners Kris and Melanie are so warm and friendly but they can't control the weather. We got hit by a big snowstorm and passed a lot of ditched cars on the drive wondering how many of them were just trying to get to an acappella concert. We lost some of the crowd because of the icy drive but did manage to hook up with our former sound tech, Bob Picard who lives there now! Here's us giving Bob the famous "Essentials Lift" (patent pending). After the show, Jo3 got Thom on the ol' dismembered finger gag since there was a hole in the table. 
As Thom lifted up his menu, voila...a lone digit! Thom was a little creeped out and queasy but somehow still managed to suck back his Gahans effortlessly.
We did an in-store performance at Backstreet Records in St. John where we met the owner, Gordie. Very cool record shop. Sure he's got the latest CD's you'd expect but he also had tons of old vinyls so a salivating Thom picked up a few of those and Jo3 picked up a Spinal Tap DVD since his old one was wrecked and he needs to go to 11 on occasion.
They have entertainment every weekend and the owner, Carol Ann, hosts the acts in her gorgeous cottage which is guarded by her friendly 9-year old boxer, Buddy, which Dan harassed (Dan's version is "played with") relentlessly.
Then we headed back to Halifax. We realize it's backtracking, but that's how we roll. We took this shot of us with a giant blueberry who we just thought looked pretty cool. I mean, how often do you get to have your pic taken with a giant blueberry? Fiddles, sure, but blueberries?
We played a fun night at The Carlton, a cool music room with great food, and an old school-mate of Jo3's came out bringing with her, the very first autograph he ever signed in Grade 8. He was playing bass guitar at the time with a couple of chums and claims he may go back to this signature one day since it saves ink.
Saturday morning Luke, Janet, and Jo3 walked to the Parliament Buildings. That's where Luke did his beatboxing trick and Jo3 performed the first ever single-handed "Essentials Lift" (patent pending). Janet claims his arms were starting to shake as Luke took the pic but Jo3 claims that, um...that there was a very low frequency earthquake undetectable by any scientific gadgetry that only bass singers can feel. Yeah, it's pretty lame.