Canada, eh?

After… whatever the last show was, I think it was Columbus but I’m too lazy to check, we had a day off. As usual it was mostly spent sleeping, driving, eating and doing laundry. We did decide to cross over into Canada that night/early morning. We got through with no problems this time and decided to check out Niagara Falls.

The downtown-ie area is like Vegas or something!

Ahh! It's a dragon!!!!

These lights are kick drums!

Because of the schedule we keep, we didn’t actually go see the Falls until 2am. We could see white water off in the distance, and hear the Falls. It was cool because there weren’t really any people around, but we couldn’t see as much as we would have been able to in the daylight. I got some decent pictures though.

Steam rising into the air

This sign is very detailed, it's almost giving instructions.

Cool fountain at the place we went to for dinner

The first 2 shows in Canada were both in Toronto at Rockpile, the awesome venue we were at last tour. Even though we weren’t headlining this time, they still treated us amazingly. 

The crowd Thursday night didn’t really seem to be into any of the openers. Not so much they didn’t like them, but everyone just wanted to sit in back at the tables and observe. I decided to take the opportunity to stand right up front for Open Your Eyes’ set. Ben eventually came and joined me, and slowly through out a few more people came down. I always figure that if no one else is going to go up and enjoy the show I’m going to enjoy my own personal concert :)

The awesome thing about playing the same venue 2 nights in a row is not having to tear down at the end of the night, or set up the next day! Because of which, I got to sleep in the next day, and had time to kill before doors. OYE found a place to play pool and invited John, Ben and I along.

One of the openers that night (whose name I don’t know, gah!) was this cool, horror Rock-a-billy band with a girl that played upright bass. 

The crowd Friday night was better, but there were also way more drunk/rowdy people people :( During “Be My Friend” I set the candy pumpkin down on one of the boxes Kim stands on to do the motions for the chorus. A guy in the audience started rifling through it. The second time I set it down I made it a point to set it BEHIND the box. This time the guy reached AROUND it. I stopped dancing and was about to take it from him/kick his hand when he took a piece on candy out and set it back *angry* Now I make it a point to try to set it out of reach of the audience…

They weren’t much better during Wednesday 13’s set. Some guy managed to crowd surf, and at the very end of W13’s set someone tried ripping one of his masks off or something. I don’t know for sure what happened, but he started yelling at them and left the stage pretty angry.

The next night we were in Ottawa. I noticed a bunch of super cute Canadian accents at this show. Plenty of “aboot-s” and “eh-s.” There was also a fanboy who knew who I was and was telling his dad it’s because “Kim always tweets aboot her.” Lol. 

Whenever I'm side stage and try to get a pic of Kim doing a backbend at the end of "Break" I always end up being on the awkward crotch side. I was finally on her head side this time, but the lights totally blew out the photo...

This was also the night of the great face bashing incident… Some of you have seen the picture on Facebook/Instagram.

So here’s what happened…  Kim had been sick for a while and was trying really hard not to over do it with her voice. A few songs into W13’s set Junior came and told me Kim wasn’t coming back for a second meet & greet after W13’s set. So I was picking up her stuff and clearing off the table she was using. I went to fold up her chair, but instead of the bottom folding up, the entire backrest came off. Right into the bridge of my nose. It started bleeding pretty badly. Not gushing, but a pretty steady drip. I ran to my backpack because I knew I had kleenex in there somewhere. But, of course, I couldn’t find it. I’m digging and digging around, meanwhile my other hand is now full of a puddle of blood. I’m dripping on the floor, and I keep finding it randomly on my things. One of the tub lids has a spot, a make-up bag that was in my backpack has a big stain on it, I need to wash the W13 hoodie I bought because I kept finding blood drips all over it, etc. It’s getting to the point that I’m debating if I should sacrifice a t-shirt or something when I FINALLY manage to find the kleenex. There are only 2 left…  Luckily I managed to clean up enough to make it through the crowd to the bathroom with out causing a scene or bleeding on anyone. I get to the bathroom and there’s a pretty big, open gash on my nose. I wash up, and grab a handful of paper towel. I make it back to the merch table pressing one against the still bleeding wound. And of course we’re in Canada so I have no cell service. I try getting on Facebook to send a message to Ben and Junior on the off chance that they happen to be on, but the wifi isn’t working anymore. I starting to get worried because it won’t stop bleeding and I’m afraid it’s going to need stitches. Just as I’m about to leave the table unattended and go to the bus, Ben stops by to check on me!!! He kept an eye on the table while I went to the bus to figure out what was going on. I got to the bus and Kim helped me clean it and cut a bandaid to put over it. She also made me sit and eat something since I’d lost a bunch of blood (it probably wasn’t actually enough to make me pass out or anything, but I think she wanted me to take some time to relax). I eventually went back in at the end of W13’s set to make some final sales and pack up.

The first bandaid completely filled with blood by the end of the night and I had to change it before bed. When I woke up the next morning the new bandaid was full again and I was getting worried again that I might need stitches. Finally after a couple days of slow seepage it stopped bleeding on it’s own. It seems to be healing well and hopefully won’t leave a scar. If it does I’ll have to come up with a cooler story about how it happened :)

We made it back into America with no issues, and our first show back States side was in Webster, NY. It was at this old, historical building called Harmony House. It was kind of a weird venue for a rock show, but it had a lot of cool history. The restrooms were labeled “Olivia Newton” and “Elton” (Get it? Because they’re Johns! Gosh, it’s not funny if I have to explain it to you…). The openers at this show were kind of weird as well. The first 2 guys were rappers, there was a boy band, and a metal band with a screaming singer and a rapper. None of them were bad, they’re just a lot different than the openers we’ve been getting on this tour.

I also had a pretty clear view of Sandra of OYE from where my merch was set up. She is for sure a BEAST on the drums! <3 <3 <3

Blurry Kim FLYING over the drum set

After Webster, we finally got another day off! And it was in NYC! We parked in our usual spot overnight and took off on our separate ways the next day. Junior and John went to a Moog store and nerded out over synths for hours. Kim had the hotel room to herself so she had a bit of a spa day then met up with Kyle from W13 for lunch. Ben and I bussed into the city. We started off getting some brunch at a place Ben found that has 24 hour breakfast. I’ll have to remember it for next time because it was good! We got our tour tradition, Times Square selfie, then took the subway to lower Manhattan to check out the Gothic Renaissance and Halloween stores (I broke down and bought a new pair of fangs because I couldn’t find mine when I was packing). We then wandered over to Webster Hall where we’d be playing the next night because it was across the street. After that we wandered a block over and found a cool little toy/comic book shop. I ended up buying a small stuffed Grumpy Cat in a shark costume and what I’m calling my new “Grumpy Hat” since I stupidly forgot to pack a warm hat this tour. Ben started getting tired of walking around so we took the subway back up to Times Square where he went to a movie and I met up with Kim & Junior.  We had Dim Sum for dinner, wandered around a bit, then found a couple of little dessert places. We met back up with Ben, but Kim ended up going off to get a message while I went to the Apple store and finally got a new phone! (Thanks Kim & Jason!!!!) We all got back together, then ubered back to the bus to drive it into the city at night while there was less traffic.