I see your Schwartz is as big as mine

Published on Sun 2 Dec 2007

Someone pointed out to me that my entry about Toronto made it sound like it wasn't fun, so I thought I'd say that, even with all that stuff going wrong, travelling around playing music is still better than pretty much anything else I can think of. So there. Anyway, we left Toronto in search of breakfast...

... which we found in a roadside place an hour or so outside the city. And what a breakfast it was - amazing fried potatoes, toast, pancakes, sausages, bacon and eggs over easy. I'm ashamed to say it defeated me, but only because the pancakes were so outrageously massive. They must have been 9 or 10 inches across. And there were 2 of them. Jason gave me some important advice - to not let pancakes get cold before eating them. I'm not sure what happens if you do. Maybe they're just less nice or something.

The rest of the day was spent on the road, flicking through various radio stations, most of which were stuck in the late 80's, early 90's (get in!) and watching the landscape get colder (but stay pretty flat).

When we finally made it to Montreal we went to Kaya's parents' beautiful house to drop the bags of and have a beer, before going off in search of the venue. There was a bit of trouble finding it, mostly because the only signage they have is the name of the place "Le Cagibi" in very small joined up letters in the glass of the door. It turned out to be a lovely little place though, warm and dimly lit, and full of extremely attractive people all reading or writing stuff. It may have left me with an unrealistic picture of Montreal, but it seems like a great city.

I think I did my best set of the tour - I was relaxed and really into it and, for a change, said decent things in between songs. Everyone was very polite, but I couldn't really tell what they thought. I managed to spill some beer on a girl in the front row shortly before going on while trying to save her from a falling mic stand. I'm not sure if she realised what was about to happen, or if she'd have prefered the mic stand over the beer anyway, but she was nice about it so I guess it was all alright. Setlist (approx): Edinburgh, Watertight, Alabaster, Ball and Chain, So Finally a Love Song, The Easy Way Out, Radio Silence.

Jason went on after me, with Chris switching to bass, and was great again. None of my photos of the people playing came out and I can't be arsed to trawl facebook trying to find other people's for the moment. Kaya played with Jonny on drums and Jason on bass, and that was excellent too. Then we piled back round to chez Fraser where everyone else had pizza and I fell asleep. It's surprisingly tiring sitting in a car all day doing nothing.

The next day we had delicious fruit pie and bagels for breakfast, then wandered round the neighbourhood looking at food and buying booze for the evening. It amused me that KFC in Quebec is called PFK (Poulet Frit Kentucky, I think, with Kentucky pronounced in an outrageous accent), while Burger King is still Burger King. I didn't get a chance to ascertain whether Quarterpounders at McDonalds are called Royales or not.

Once we'd repacked the car we drove through the centre of the city, looking at sights...

...on the way to the World Famous Schwartz's Deli...

...for World Famous Smoked Meat Sandwiches...

World Famous Pickles...

World Famous Fries and World Famous Cherry Cola. The guys had been talking about it since I got there. It was a Good sandwich. I couldn't move afterwards.

There was an amusing incident on the way where a guy came up to the car at some lights and mimed washing the windscreen. I don't know if it was performance art or he was just a weirdo. Someone suggested that we mimed giving him some money, but in the end we just kept the windows closed.