The
Loft - St. Paul, Alberta – March 25th 2006
A couple weeks since our
last gig we’re all ready
and excited to be hitting the road for another out of town
show. We’re going to be opening for Cheat2Win at
the Loft. Brit Matthews from Cheat2Win scored us the gig.
Jason produced their demo at Owensound Studios in Edmonton
so it was a cool to be playing a show with them. Brit and
I had been planning on doing something for a good four
months so it was good to see it come to fruition.
We left Edmonton and headed
for St. Paul around 3:00PM. Once we arrived I gave Britt
a call and got directions to The Loft. We met up at the
bar and the boys from Cheat2Win we’re already there;
well into the liquor I might add. I could already tell
that this was going to be a good night. We loaded in
all of our gear to have our sound check. After that we
went over to the restaurant Chez Lynn for a quick bite
to eat. Good food and good service too.
We headed back over to
the Loft; the doors still hadn’t
opened to the general public. It wouldn’t be until
around 10:00PM that we actually hit the stage. We began
to drink out of our comped beer stash and proceeded to
play some pool on the upper level of the bar. Everything
was ready to go, all we we’re waiting for was the
clock to roll down and people to begin entering the bar.
As the clock moved along
people started to find there way to the Loft. Some of
our bass players’ family
and friends from Elk Point came out which was cool. The
time to go on stage was almost at hand and I was well liquored
up by this point. Knowing that I would be staying at Brits
I didn’t hold back from the consuming of the alcohol.
There was a good 60 – 70 people in the bar when we
finally went on.
We played for an hour,
Sean laid down a wicked drum solo and the crowd was cheering
like no tomorrow. Nolan the bar owner was really into
our music too, it was sweet. We put on one of our best
shows to date and caught the whole thing on Video Camera
(using a Digital Camera, Cannon XL2). The boys from Cheat2Win
we’re also very impressed
with our performance.
After we were finished and tore down we sold a good 25
CDs (which was pretty amazing) did a whole shit load of
signing and was totally treated like home town boys by
the crowd. Nolan kept feeding us drinks and we chatted
with the boys from Cheat2Win until it was time for them
to go on stage.
They took the stage and
played a killer set, I already new a bunch of their material
so was compelled to get in front and rock out to their
tunes. The sound at the Loft was also pretty damn sweet
considering it’s a bar
in small town northern Alberta. Couldn’t tell when
we were on stage but once I was in the crowd it came through
like no tomorrow.
After the guys finished
and the bar began to close down, Jason headed out to
the after party with most of the guys from Cheat2Win
while the rest of us picked up some off sales and headed
over to Brit’s to play Guitar Hero
for PS2. I kicked some serious ass. Mwahaha. We all passed
out around 5:00am.
We met up with Jason the next morning at the Loft to pick
up the rest of our gear and get our pay. Jason looked pretty
hung, but said he had a good time. One thing I want to
note right now is that The Loft in St. Paul is one of the
best Venues we have ever played at. From the respect they
give to the musicians and to all the hard work that they
do to bring in bands, Nolan and Brit do an excellent job
and treat the bands right.
After we got all our stuff
from the bar we headed over to Smitty’s in St. Paul for round two of the Smitty’s
breakfast. This time the food was actually quite enjoyable.
Nolan shared many great stories and cracked us up. Good
times. Once we finished our meal we got back on the road
and headed back to ye ol’ Edmonton.
Touring is one of the best parts of being in a band.
Happy and Fulfilled,
Shane Lamotte
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