Andrew Stricko Takes Jesse Giddings on the Road

May 13th, 2010

andrewstricko

Hey All,

Lots has happened in the past few days since my last update. We got a tour bus! Aside from being super stoked about our shiny new bus I’ve got a few things to tell you.

Over the weekend we stole Jesse Giddings and brought him along to Montreal with us. Having Jesse around was great because he’s super rad to hang with! He fit into the crew like he’d been here all along.

Montreal is one of my favourite places to visit. I always have a killer time there and never want to leave. Maybe it’s the restaurant La Belle Province, or the bar Foufounes Electriques. Either way, Montreal rules and so do our fans there. The show was INSANE. There were people everywhere. I love playing clubs that have general admission floors and balconies. Everyone jammed onto the floor and when there was no room left they crowded the balcony. To top it off, Frank from The New Cities had a pretty sweet Montreal Canadians drum kit for the occasion!

After an epic show like that, what is the most logical way to celebrate? How about take the entire tour to Foufounes Electriques for $1.50 beers and Jagermeister shots! That’s right. We know how to party (and do it cheaply). Aside from not having any Cristal we brought the ruckus and I’m sure if someone handed me a bottle of Bambino or Baby Duck it would have been just as good. Foufounes was full of band boys and best friends till last call. This tour has been awesome and getting to share it with these amazing bands has been nothing short of incredible. After partying till our beds were calling, I’m pretty sure we showed Montréal what was up, multiple bar induced ‘cut-offs’ included.

I must have made it to my bunk on the bus at around 4 or 5 am. At 7:30 am there was a combination of JP’s alarm and Jesse Giddings calling my cell phone at lest 15 times until I woke up to unlock the bus and let him in. I wouldn’t have been so irritated at that hour had I not opened the door to snow falling. It’s May! Jesse got in the bus and I went back to bed. Montréal got the best of everyone and I’m more than ok with that.

The next morning was filled with a drive to Yorkdale mall north of Toronto to drop Jesse off at the subway station, with the band continuing on to Collingwood, Ontario. After calling my mom and grandparents to wish them a happy Mother’s Day, I and the rest of the band picked up some tickets for Iron Man 2.

Iron Man 2 was epic, although I felt the climax or big fight scene fell a little short. Regardless, Robert Downey Jr is the man and I plan on picking up at least two pairs of the many sunglasses he was sporting in that movie.

The next day we moved on to Meaford, Ontario, a town I had never heard of in my 22 years of existence. We played at this awesome little old theatre which had an art gallery full of random rad paintings, which was awesome because I’m a huge art fan. After hanging out and looking at most of the paintings we did our sound check and I proceeded to explore Meaford with our merch guy, appropriately dubbed merch Mike. Downtown Meaford isn’t much, so the journey was quick but not uneventful. Successfully scoring some frosters from the Mac’s milk we took a quick gander at the Georgian Bay and made our hundred foot walk back to the venue. The show was great and I ran into a cousin and some familiar faces better know as Matthew Brann and Greig Nori.

After the show we did a signing at our merch table then corralled ourselves onto the bus to party the night away. Days off don’t happen often on tour, so you have to take full advantage of them and the night previous. Our whole crew went till the early morn and left merch mike and I as the last two standing, watching UFC in the back lounge. I’m not much for UFC, but I felt it was necessary to watch since Montréal was hosting. Go Canada. I robbed mike of his iPod and hit my bunk to wait until the next day.

So here I am, another day off and we’re headed to Bracebridge, Ontario to do a bus trade. We weren’t supposed to have this current bus originally, but thanks to a sketchy van we were able to. Today we pick up the bus we planned on having and will have to christen it and make it our home for the next three weeks.

As I sign off once again, I’ll leave you with this…

“There are lots of smart ideas in books I never read.” – Jimmy Eat World

Tags: Andrew Stricko, Faber Drive, jesse giddings