From Richard:
Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada
06-Oct-2012
Having gone to bed early the night before, I woke early yesterday morning. Opened the curtains to a bleak dawn... snowing, grey and the wind howling, blowing the snow sideways. A great morning to ring room service and have a large pot of coffee sent up. I found a very usable gym in the hotel though the first order of business was locating the remote control units for the three televisions that were blaring a chirpy morning talk show in unison. I suppose it could have been worse if they were all on different stations. Why do people think noise equals motivation? I found the remotes and as I was the only one using the facility, the screens went mercifully dark.
The weather never relented so it was a day of mopping up a lot of e-mail and falling into the black hole of a website devoted to children's records that my wife sent
http://www.kiddierecords.com/2005/index.htm Being a record collector and having once been a child, I remember many of these wonderful discs from when I was a kid. The guy who put this site together has really spent an enormous amount of time and attention to detail in making his personal collection available to all.
A late check out from the hotel and it off to the MTS Centre for our first show of the tour. It was like we'd never had a year break from touring, the old routine of dumping the bags in the dressing room and rooting around for something to eat, sound check, dinner, dress etc. seems to be encoded in our DNA. It was great seeing Bob's band and crew again, loads of hellos and catching up on the year gone by. It was time to do our first gig and what a great one we had. I can't remember a first show where everyone was so confident and relaxed. I won't give away the tunes that we're doing but will say that there's a healthy selection from the the new Privateering album and they went down brilliantly with the audience. It couldn't have been a better launch to this tour. That followed by a 7 hour bus ride to Regina, Saskatchewan, arriving just past 3 this morning and playing tonight. We're officially on tour.
So long,
Richard
