Birthday Peja, Skeleton Park, Via Rail, NXNE, Tennis at the Club, and Tea with Grandma

A big thanks to the Kyra and Tully spectacular touring adventure for ignoring my complete lack of rehearsal attendance and letting me join them on stage at not one, but two festival gigs on Saturday.

We played at 11am at the Skeleton Park Music Festival and we were absolutely terrified when the amazing Skeleton Park band too the stage right before us and completely destroyed. They were amazing. And their combined age is like 50. I think ours was about 284. As they played, Daniel (k&t's drummer) looked at me and said "we're screwed". These musicians had youth, energy, and the rock and roll on their side. Of course, they had to follow the Purple Dragon Puppet Show, which was nearly as daunting a task.

We climbed the stage at 11 and congratulated the young men on their amazing set, and set about setting up our gear. My choice for a greeting to the crowd would've been "hey, we're old and tired!", but once the music got rolling, I felt like we played our best set ever. The energy came from the park to our arms, from the crowd to our fingers, from our instruments to the air. It was great, and I had a fantastic time.

Now, that seemed like quite enough of a day, and I would've been thrilled to spend the rest of the day hangin' out with the birthday girl (yeah, Peja's 5!), but Kyra and Tully got invited to rock the awesome NXNE festival in Toronto, so around 2pm I gave Peja one last "happy birthday" and headed to the train station. The train was 90 minutes late, which made my sprinting to the station a little less dramatic. . . I hit the city at 6:30, a good 30 minutes late for load-in, but I made it in time for sound-check, and at 8 we played a really solid set for a fantastic crowd.

I navigated the crazy city at got to my Aunt's house around 10 -- she kindly made me some dinner, and I fell fast asleep in the basement with Sasha (crazy dog) sleeping on the chair next to my futon.

I got up early the next morning (thanks for the pancakes Auntie Lynda!) and my friend Chris (hey Chris!) picked me up and we played some tennis. Well, he played some tennis, and I played whatever a retarded wounded monkey plays when handed a tennis racket.

I rushed back to my Aunt's house to have Tea with my 93 year-old Grandma Gert. She is awesome. I managed to coax Peja's dance routine video out of a 10 year old laptop, and all were pleased.

One more VIA rail ride (dead ipod, but window seat = better deal than the opposite), and I was back in the warm arms of my family who crammed a whole day of Father's Day awesomeness into 6-8pm. Peja even bought me a candy necklace (truly my favourite candy), and Sienna made an amazing father's day cake. Mmmmmm. . . Father's Day. . .

Oh, and to my father, Paul Alan Middaugh, Happy Belated Father's Day!