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Faber Drive’s Andrew Stricko’s Crazy Tour Blog!

April 30th, 2010

andrew1

Being on the road presents many highs and lows. Whether they be great or just plain terrible there is always something to take home with you each day.

Today was the fifth show of our twenty-three date headlining tour that we’re calling the can’T KeEp a SecrEt Tour, which was cleverly named after our new album. After spending three weeks on tour with Hedley, Stereos and Fefe Dobson, we’re crossing the country on our terms and bringing some killer bands along the way. From St. John’s, Newfoundland to Vancouver, British Columbia we in Faber Drive are caravanning The New Cities, The Latency, These Kids Wear Crowns and Jesse Labelle along with us for the ride. Even though we’ve only played five shows so far, the memories are already piling sky high.

I guess the biggest difference between finishing a Canadian tour with Hedley and starting our own national tour is that we get to play longer and be the shot callers of the tour. The second biggest difference for me is leaving the arenas behind for clubs and theaters, two types of venues that I love. Don’t get me wrong I love arenas, but there’s always something special about playing more intimate venues and sweating it out together. I prefer the clubs and theaters because of how much crazier and interactive the shows can be rather than trying to keep five to twenty thousand individuals interested and equally entertained. I guess if we ever become an arena band I’ll worry about that on a larger scale when the time comes.

On this particular tour we’re bringing along bands that we love, are great friends with, and put on killer live shows. There wasn’t any real method to choosing the lineup other than knowing that we wanted to bring the best Canadian bands we could and to have bands out that we know we would be able to share some crazy times with.

andrewstricko

In the three weeks with Hedley and Co, I also saw some crazy things go down! From kids rushing the stage and tackling Tommy, getting ‘screeched in’ at Christian’s in St. John’s with the entire tour (including crew), to drinking bottles of Patrone stageside with Fefe and her band, the Hedley tour was nothing but good times and great parties. The funniest thing to me is how everyone always wants to see what is going on backstage, when really almost everything on that tour that was noteworthy was done in plain view of the audience or the unlucky general public. However on our own tour, the crazier things have been happening anywhere at any time. I’m extremely stoked to have Jesse Labelle and his band out on this entire run with us. Jesse is a great dude, and his band are way too much fun. In just under a week we’ve gathered enough memories to shoot an episode of Behind the Music. Ok, I guess that’s a bit of a stretch, but we’re definitely on our way. Let me put it this way. If you can see this tour through our eyes thus far, you would wonder how half of the things that happen make any sense at all.

The best thing about this tour is that we’re taking it to smaller, more un-chartered markets rather than playing the ten or so major cities that every other band hits 99% of the time. Playing the smaller towns always calls for interesting and sometimes strange happenings. In less than one week I’ve witnessed stray venue cats, multiple bras and panties barraging our guitarist JP on stage, and Iron Maiden induced senior citizen riots. I can honestly say that after one week, I wish this tour would never end. Unfortunately the New Cities haven’t been around for the first couple shows due to some van maintenance issues. Rent a van boys!

Lastly, I’d like to mention that I’m sure the collective mental deficiency of this tour will only further the amount or ridiculous things to come. I can promise you that there will be good, bad and ugly moments that I can’t wait to share with you. Hopefully the New Cities will be joining us any day now and we can add a few more dudes into the circus we’ve created.

Watch out Canada, this could get interesting!

Stricko

Tags: Andrew Stricko, Faber Drive, FeFe Dobson, hedley, jesse labelle, The Latency, the new cities, these kids wear crowns