First Gig Today

I've just woken up after my first remotely normal sleep since arriving in Vancouver. Jetlag. Bah. Anyway, Vancouver is very sweet as - particularly the part we're staying in. Yaletown is great - good food, good bars, yoga centres and such. We've spent the last two days postering the city down the main drags, Granville and Robson, and around the venues we're playing.
 
Posters. Arrrggghhh. What an ordeal this has been. Ever spent an afternoon telling Kinko's employees that all printers should be able to print multiple sheets per page? Ever asked for A3 sized paper (or A4 for that matter) and been met with a completely blank look which quickly turns into a 'you're an idiot' look? Ever had to go home TWICE to redesign posters that you have already spent ages designing so that when you got to Vancouver all you would need to do is go and print the bastards?
 
The New Music West Festival started yesterday with little VIP shindig and an art gallery, which we discovered was literally across the road from where we are staying. Pretty convenient! So, we had some nice wine, some nice cheese and some nice schmoozing with other NMW folk. Mainly though, we schmoozed with Reggie and Lizzy of New Found Frequency (the Australian Export Showcase organisers) and another Australian act Clare Reynolds and her partner in crime, Daniel. These guys hail from Brisbane but have been very impressively basing themselves in LA (I think this is very brave, what with LA being full of Americans with guns). We're going to see Clare perform in her showcase tonight - she's the final act, on at 1am! Which is kind of convenient, really because we have our first gig earlier in the evening...
 
First Gig:
We're performing as part of the '4 Corners of the Globe Showcase' tonight, which is like a bonus showcase for us, so great, and which will be in a venue called The Libra Room (www.libraroom.com) on Commercial Drive. This part of town is, as much as I can gather, a bit of a latin quarter. We postered the hell out of it yesterday. We also saw a guy who looked just like Robin Hood (or at least one of his Merry Men) practising with his wooden fighting stick. Yes.
And for the botanists out there, there were some tulips planted in this little park and I kid you not, these petals were bigger than my hands. Maybe bigger than Ade's hands. Monsters.
Anyway, the gig should be cracking. 4 Corners of the Globe actually means two Australia bands, a Canadian band and an Icelandic band. Sweet. Australia has two corners of the globe.
 
Other things we've seen:
They have a beer over here called Keith's. I love that.
I have some video footage of some guys breakdancing - they were pretty good. Breakdancing is cool.
There is a really strange thing in Vancouver. We're obviously staying in a really nice area, and we're right in the major shopping and culture part of Vancouver, with bars, eateries, clubs, expensive hotels, theatres etc. We headed off in search of our Australian Showcase venue, The Bourbon, yesterday to poster the hell out of it, and ended up getting there in a bit of a roundabout way - through what seems like a completely different city. All of a sudden we walked from nice shops and parkland into a quite frightening, ghost-town like area which just had destitute people huddled together with mankey old blankets. They huddled in doorways and on steps to escape the weather (which is still very cold) but it was clear these areas are also frequently used as toilets. All the buildings in this area were derelict and looked empty and abandonned (or were barricaded to the nth degree). This was pretty saddening for us, but also pretty frightening. We had heard that there is next to no policing around there too, so we got out of there pretty quickly, found our venue, postered the hell out of it then got in the first cab we saw.
You can't get muesli in Vancouver. And Special K is not the same. Nooooooo.
There are tattoo parlours EVERYWHERE.
 
I think that'll do from me right now. I'm due for some more tea and some cable tv. ohhhh yeaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!
x jane