OSHAWA

Dropping Bombs in the Meanest Bar in Oshawa

Because three of the five members of The SPP grew up in Oshawa, the whole band splits up to go to visit their respective parents and friends. Kate and I tag along with Steve to visit the Luscher residence for a quick bit to eat before show time. We make plans to reunite at the club for soundcheck and load in.

We are playing at the Atria in Oshawa which is the kinda of joint people accidentally get stabbed in. But we are playing with our good friends Elvyn, who are a kick-ass awesome band and really good fellas to boot! We skip soundcheck (come top think of it, I don't think we got one sound check the entire tour) and move straight to drinking. Or at least I start drinking. Heavily. I am joined by my partner's sister and her fiancée who live just outside of Oshawa.

The Atria is home to quite possibly the scariest shooter girl in the world, whose engine can go from zero to skank in 6.5 seconds flat. Unfortunately for me, she saw me and my alcohol budget coming from a mile away. I was pretty lit up by the time we took the stage.

For such a sketchy room, the sound is amazing and we perform really well. The crowd of roughly 50-60 people, which includes the entire Ritter, Luscher and Rifkin clans, are enjoying the show and are quite vocal. Dave breaks another string and I caution him to be careful around the lap top. He snaps something at me angrily and I smile as I am one step closer to completing the first of my tour goals. Unfortunately for me, Dave is being revisited during the show by the dinner he purchased from the local Vietnamese restaurant. And because this is Oshawa, I highly doubt that a Vietnamese person has ever even set foot in the place. So you can imagine how sketchy the food is. As result, Dave is dropping bombs all show long making my place directly behind him on stage the least pleasant location on the face of the earth for roughly 45 minutes.

Elvyn take the stage next. This band is almost god-like in my eyes. Their songs are amazing and their live show and musicianship during said live shows are always spot on. However they came out and played a very human first three songs. Which is odd, cause it made me love this band even more! Go check out www.elvyn.com to get a taste of what I'm talking about. You'll be glad that you did.

After selling a good chunk of merch to friends and family, we load out fairly quickly as a series of random fights break out around our van. I crash hard at the Luscher residence and wake up miraculously without a hangover. After breakfast we hit the road.

Words spoken by Mike Rifkin on tour at this point: 23