LONDON

BOOZE, ROCK AND ROLL and MS PAC MAN?

Kate hasn't been sleeping well on this tour and her sleep deprivation is starting to show. She keeps having “tour” nightmares and isn't adjusting to sleeping in a new bed every night. She spends part of the van ride babbling like fucking maniac and I think that this might be my opportunity to make her cry. However, I decide to let this one go and that maybe my tour goals actually just make me an asshole. We roll into London around lunch time and head down to the Farmers Market for a bite to eat and meet Dave's sister. Then we hit up the surprisingly good record stores that London has to offer.

Afterwards, I leave the group to go meet with my friend Laura who had recently relocated to her home town of London. She is a good friend of mine from Ottawa and our adventures together are legendary tales of debauchery. We sit on a patio for dinner shoot the shit with her boyfriend and friends. We talk about her trips to New Mexico and the sage advice she received from her mother while we each polish of at least a pitcher of beer. She drops me off the club for the sound-check that never happens and we make plans to meet back at the club around show time. I have three margaritas at dinner and quite drunk before the show even starts.

The club is called the Salt Lounge and it is huge. It easily has a 500 person capacity but they only run the front half of the club on week nights. James from the Sarnia show shows up, which is a pretty cool thing for him to do. As well, our little journalist friends that interviewed us on our last tour show up, which is a nice surprise as well. The crowd is surprisingly good for a Monday night and our show is pretty solid. Steve breaks a string during the first song and plays the rest of the set with my crappy SG copy we brought along as a back-up. Dave receives a weekend diss from the soundman/booker Paul for talking up the other cities on the tour during the London show but everyone is having a good time. Paul is a good dude and treated us well.

Laura makes it back to the club in time for the show and buys 20 Jeff pins to distribute to the crowd. God bless her. After the show I leave with Laura and her boyfriend to crash but we end up staying up till 4 am drinking, eating Mr. Noodles and playing Ms Pac Man.

We go for breakfast at the scariest greasy spoon in the world, Richard's Restaurant - Home of the Orange Potatoes. Don't ask. After breakfast Laura drops me off downtown in the morning so I can meet with my band-mates and head off to Peterborough.

Words spoken by Mike Rifkin on tour at this point: 51