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