Renegade Release Tour (Ontario) – Week 1
Hello from Newmarket, Ontario & welcome to the first installment of this tour blog!
Before Claire Bestland and I hopped on a plane headed for Toronto from Winnipeg, I had two nights in a row of performing our music. The first was at Shannon’s Irish Pub with my whole band; a night that left me feeling grateful at 3am and a bit bagged in the morning. But I managed to pack up anyway & head out to Claire’s album release event where I opened the night and then sang with her awesome band.
(All thumbnails are clickable!)
They tore the roof off of The West End Cultural Centre and I felt like I had the best “seat” in the house, singing along on stage right.
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There were a few hours of sleep in there, then some early morning packing and the aforementioned flight before we landed in beautiful Ontario. The fall colours are in full force and there is so much beauty to notice, everywhere I turn!
The family and friends I have here are extremely great to be around and open their hearts and homes to us so openly that it makes me glow with gratitude. After soaking in a bit of that warmth and catching up on a bit of sleep, we headed to London to rent some equipment and play and chat with Jan Saddy of Organic Grooves on CHRW Radio (Western University’s awesome campus station). We also visited one of Claire’s friends who has a beautiful country property with peacocks and a restaurant called Beertown that had taps at the tables and mouthwatering homemade burger condiments.
The same day, we high tailed it to Guelph, where we had a lovely time exploring before performing at The Red Brick Cafe.
The Red Brick is a wonderful place with a warm back room to make music in and we had way too much fun making noise while The Blue Jays big win happened.
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The next night we played at C’est What? before The DoneFors, who are a fantastically groovy band with equally fantastic people who were nothing but friendly and supportive and wonderful.
We were grateful to get back to the amazing place where we’re house sitting, with an amazing cat. But after more sleep catch-up, it was off to MahTay Cafe in St. Catharines where friends of both my Mom and Step-Mom were able to join us. The art on the walls is by one of the staff there named “Taylor” (whose last name I wish I would have caught). Please go see it and buy it if you are in St. Cath. She and her art are just great.
After a day off on Saturday, we headed to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) yesterday in Toronto, where Claire was in her happy place the whole time and I found a bit of mine too. Then we visited The Rivoli for dinner and stopped in at The Horseshoe, where the bartender grabbed a guitar off of the wall and Claire played to a delighted Sunday night crowd. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time she played there. We also found our Toronto gig listing in Now Magazine! And once back in our house-sitting glory, there was a game of pool that was won by the cat.
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That brings us up to date! There was so much to tell, but overall, this experience has been more wonderful than ever expected and we’re enjoying every bit of it. If you’d like to know what we’re sounding like in this new duo tour arrangement, please check out the below video. And if you know someone in Peterborough or Ottawa, please tell them we’ll be there soon!
Thanks for following this journey of mine as I expand and take over the world one City at a time while making art and helping others do the same. It is a dream come true to do what I love and I know it’s only possible because I am surrounded by awesome people like you.
More to come… ’til then – thanks for listening.
Lindsey
Whoohooo! Sounds awesome! Have fun!