Though it's probably long past the point of anyone caring about the rest of the ill-fated tour, it being a week since our return, the editors of Optimuscrime Halifax have decided to trudge forth, and continue with the saga. Despite sickness, despite apathy, despite a million other better things to do, we bring you the next chapter, because well - we figure we'll thank ourselves later when we have the whole thing written down. That's right, it's a mom-defense. Think of this as our scrapbooking endeavour, and we really just want to see it through. And so, we arrive in Montreal, Quebec.

Arriving at what the promoter called 'just barely slipping in', but what we would call 'a good two hours before the first band was to play' we quickly loaded our gear into the jam-packed venue, and said hello to our good pals, Halifax locals' Special Noise, who were joining us on the bill. The first band's name was Goa, (pictured right) and what with two full drum kits, a third percussionist, and three people operating a multitude of effects pedals, kaos pads, synths, and sequencers, some contained within briefcases, suitcases, and even apple-toys, they pretty much... well, they pretty much blew our god damned minds! Though no one in Montreal seems to have heard of these guys, Philipe, the gentleman pictured with the mic in his mouth told me that they have been playing for nearly 5 years. Come on, Montreal! Get yeselves up on the Goa!!! After Goa, Special Noise flew through a great set, wherein Jef insisted on apologizing for mistakes during certain songs. Motto of the night, as yelled by some girl in the crowd: "Keep Your Secrets!!!"

Our set went pretty well - people danced - lots of people actually. And immediately following our set was Toronto's Republic of Safety(pictured left) fronted by the wonderful, animated, and very intense Maggie who also plays in the Hidden Cameras. I found out later that Maggie and Jonny are good friends of my highschool bestie Matt, and that he in fact, recorded their record for them. Republic of Safety were very energetic, and Maggie whirled around the stage propelling the set like a theatrical whirlwind, sometimes confiding in the audience, sometimes preaching to us. She even told a story about how I had sold her a so called 'enchanted envelope' in Halifax, two years previous, and how fate had somehow brought us back together here in Montreal so that she could tell me about that envelopes journey. She was telling the truth. I did sell her an envelope, and somehow she remembered me, name and all, two years later.

Jonah, our roadie was on the job as usual. And by on the job, I of course mean, drinking furiously outside of the venue, and chatting up cute Montreal girls. (I kid, Jonah manned the table, and was very helpful, though he did like to take the occasional drinking/flirting break.) By the time the show was over, he was literally face-down on the pavement, yelling at passers by, and mumbling about getting more liquor. (pictured right)

While we sat outside cooling off after the show, and watching Jonah flop like a fish on the street, we looked up and noticed an older (by older I mean roughly mid 40's, so not actually very old,) sketchy looking man, or dude leaning against the back of our van, and watching traffic. Long dark, slightly greying hair, a mousy face, and a big black knitted touque on his head. He eventually turned around, and noticed us sitting there. "Hi," he said. "How was the show?" We told him that it had gone well, and he lamented the fact that it had been too crowed to actually go inside. "Wish I could have actually seen you guys play, it sounded pretty good from out here." he said, "You guys have a good night." and he walked off into the dark. We would see this strange, somewhat haggard (though no more so than ourselves) gentleman again, though we didn't yet know that we would care.

Part two of Montreal soon. More Montreal photos here.

After a long night of screenprinting posters for sale on tour, and a morning/afternoon of last minute packing, we left later than we had anticipated, and with more problems than we had hoped - namely, our van's middle seat was neither bolted down, nor did it have seatbelts. We decided that being on time was more important, and reasoned that the obsene amount of gear behind the seat, combined with the weight of four guys would keep it more or less in place. We were mostly right. The other problem was that my cat Elliot was apparently missing. We spent an emergency ten minutes looking and calling for him, but to no avail. I wrote a note to my roommates, explaining the situation and we left, hoping that he would eventually be found, though we had no idea how long he may have been gone.)

We arrived in Moncton just in time to load our gear in, and go out on the town in search of a couple of things we desperately needed: Coffee, food, and a lightbulb. The coffee and the food were easy enough to find, the the lightbulb which we were hoping to use to light our merch table proved to be a difficult thing to locate. Greg was convinced that we would be better off finding and stealing a bulb from some building somewhere, though some of us had our reservations. In the end, we didn't end up finding a lightbulb, and we had to do with out.