Drop EP Tour - Day 8

Day 8

We should have known from the weather in the morning how the day was going to start off - it was cold, wet, and dreary, with thick fog and mist.
You might have even called it a little erie. Either way, we set out to meet the promoter for the show in Tofino.

We met up, grabbed some pizza (Tony's Pizza in Tofino had an incredible donair sauce, for any of our east coast readers) and started promoting the show.
By promoting the show, what I mean is we stood outside of the grocery store across from the pizza joint with guitars and sang while the rest of the guys talked to those who passed. One thing we can say about the people of Tofino is that they are nice as hell. Laid back, friendly and very open to our stop-you-on-the-street promotion style.
The management at the grocery store, however, was not so open to our tactics. They booted us from the front of thier store. Not the first time, and probably not the last.

Retreating to the dry pizza shop, a rather unsettling discovery was made. The promoter hadn't arranged for any sound system at our show. What this means is that there was no P.A. system, no on-stage monitors, no sound guy, no mixing board and essentially nothing for us to plug our 5 microphones into and be heard.

This is very bad news for a band.

It's especially bad news when you're expected to be playing in a large venue that holds over 700 people. For the 300th time on the tour thus far, it seemed that were again (for lack of a better word), fucked. Phone calls were made, friends were texted, people on the street were questioned about where we could find the necessary equipment to outfit a proper rock show. It was looking about as nice as the weather (shitty).

With a little luck and a lot of help from a few locals, a sound system was found and lent to us for the evening. A complete stranger, who became known to us as Jeff from Long Beach Radio and who would later help us out even more, gave up the equipment for free and just asked that we return it all the next morning. Like I said - Tofino people. Nice as hell.

So while half the guys went to pick up the gear, the rest of us were dropped off at the venue, which was the Tofino community centre. We promtly took to setting up the stage, amps, drums, merch, etc. Upon arrival back at the venue with the sound system, Matte tried doing a guerilla sound check. Long story short, after a lengthy self-schooling in running the borrowed gear, he had succesfully figured it all out. We sound checked and were ready to kick ass.

Next problem - when the doors finally opened to the public, nobody showed up. Maybe 10 people were in attendance and we were told to expect 100+. Again, band morale plumetted and were pissed about the lack of promotion. However, we held our ground, and waited to perform. We were hoping that the rumors were true of an after-bar crowd from in town that would flood into our show. It did. A DJ showed up, then about 70 other people, all ready to keep the party going. The DJ started spinning, and then Roge', C-Mack and Matte jumped in with the live instruments. They jammed electro and dance beats with the DJ for an effective transistion into our own show - a show that would go down in the MLSF books as perhaps the wildest, latest, most unexpected crazy RIOT of a show we've ever played.

We didn't even start until 2 AM, needless to say the post-bar crowd was well into the party mentality. We rocked, sweated, screamed, jumped and slammed the hell out of that stage for damn near 2 hours. The crowd was nuts. People were crowd surfing, moshing, stage diving, chugging beer, and damn near fornicating on the floor. This one awesome guy was even repeatedly front flipping off the front of the stage. The raw energy of the crowd was incredible, and hard for us to explain in a blog. Those who experienced it for themselves might be able to tell you.

We finally finished playing at around 4 AM, and continued to party with our new friends until the sun came up. Thanks Tofino.

To read about the rest of our tour, please visit our Tour Blog section :)