Homeward bound

Hi folks,

We just crossed the highway back into Ontari-ari-ari-o. Yippeee! It's been a great trip, but we're definitely looking forward to sleeping in our own bed tonight, and getting back into the old routine (whatever that is...)

Our Church Street Concert last night was much fun (it's apparently no longer called the Church Street Cafe, since they stopped having food at their concerts).

We arrived at Janice & David's home, just outside of Lennoxville, in the early afternoon. Janice had been kind enough to leave us a delicious stew for lunch, which was quite unexpected. :-) We had a nice visit with Dave, and then helped him load up his sound equipment -- Janice and Dave run this concert series pretty much single-handedly, which is an incredible amount of work, as I know all too well. We followed him to the hall in Lennoxville and helped unload.

While Dave got his sound and recording equipment set up (he does live recording of all the Church Street shows), we went to visit Janice at her book store down the road, Black Cat. What a great store!!! All that was missing was a cat. :-) She's got a combination of new releases at the front and used books at the back. It would have been very easy to spend the entire day there, but I managed to get out of there with one book each for my niece and nephew, and one for me (even though I haven't finished reading the one I bought in Halifax -- naughty me!).

Don finally found the new Rose Cousins album, "The Send Off", which he'd tried to find in Halifax but they were all sold out. We've been listening to it on the ride home today. It took us aback a bit at first, because it's so different from her first one -- but now we're on the 5th go-round (yes, really -- why do you think I keep saying Don would leave me for Rose Cousins in an instant?!?), and it's sinking in nicely. Quite brave of her, I think, to take such a departure from what worked so well on her first. Beautiful songs, as always, plus a "cover" of a Mary Margaret O'Hara tune that pushes her in directions we haven't heard her do before -- and are excited to hear her do now. She's got such a strong voice, it's nice to hear her sing in an... almost cabaret style, really. She's got the pipes!

But, ahem, back to us. ;-)

Back to the hall to do our sound-check. Dave usually just sets up two omni mics on stage, but the cello proved a wee bit overpowering for that approach -- so we had to do a bit of fiddling around, so it wasn't all me all the time. That hall has great acoustics, so not much was needed -- I think the main balance was for the recording.

Then we were off to CJMQ for a quick interview with Dave Teasdale. He'd definitely done his research, and it was fun to chat with him about our music, the tour, the album, and life in general.

A wee bite at the neighbourhood pizzeria hit the spot -- although didn't seem that wee a bite, once we were finished. Note to self -- split an order before a show. :-) Then back to the hall.

The Church Street Concerts have been having troubles keeping the numbers up over the past year or so, but it seemed a fair-sized audience. And certainly an enthusiastic and supportive one! Apparently, all the local cellists were there, and we had somehow managed to attract a bunch of the Bishop's students, who don't often come out to these shows. Yup, we attracted the young 'uns! (No mosh pit this time, though...)

We knew it was going to be a good night after we finished our first song, "A Good Day", and heard a loud "Whoop!" from the back of the hall -- and no, we didn't kidnap little Max and make him follow us around to all our concerts, this was a grown up. :-) There were similar reactions all the night through -- does an ego good!

At intermission, I found myself surrounded by the Lennoxville cellists (good band name, no?), asking about the carbon fibre cello, my foot percussion, etc., plus a young boy who liked my blue cello but wondered why there wasn't any food. Sigh... you can't keep everybody happy (a good control of the ego!). One of them even bought Don an apple cider -- geez, what is it with Don and female cellists? ;-)

The second set went just as well, and we even got a standing ovation and encore at the end. A great way to end our tour, I'd say!

Our final tear-down, and then back to Janice & Dave's where we were treated to late-night pizza and beverages. After saying "Not Enough Whiskey" was one of her favourites, Janice then offered up the single malt -- it would have been rude to say no, right?

This morning, we were treated to delicious blueberry pancakes and "Lyssy coffee" -- the really strong stuff. :-) We had a lovely lazy morning, and didn't really want to leave, but... the call of our very own bed tore us away at last.

Driving up highway 55 towards Montreal, we saw a sight that Wyatt would have loved -- Hot Air Balloons!!! If only we'd had the camera ready...

And here we are on the 401, halfway between Cornwall and the Ottawa turn-off. A perfect day for driving. But Don's been doing it all since we left Lennoxville, so I think it's my turn now. I imagine my next post will be from... you guessed it... HOME!!!

Musically,
Alyssa