Sam Roberts Band, Aug 5/07, London, ON

I woke up, looked out the bus windows and saw the rainy skies of the city where I was born. We were in London to play the prestigious London Balloon Festival. Yup...

We did a quick soundcheck in the morning, mainly due to fatigue but also due to rain, and we headed over to the hotel for food and showers. We had most of the afternoon off and we thought we were out of luck on a Sunday, but thankfully there was a cheap movie theater next door, so a couple of us saw The Simpsons movie for $4. How can you beat that?! A bargain at twice the price...

Went back later on, did a show for a few thousand faithful, hung around for a bit and jumped back on the bus. We had to drop a couple people off in Toronto, then I got dropped in Ottawa at 8am (ugh) before the bus dropped the rest of the guys in Montreal. And so ends a quick weekend-warrior style run into the midwest and back... More dates at the end of the month, stay tuned...

Sam Roberts Band, Aug. 4/07, Lollapalooza, Chicago, IL

At 7:30pm last night the tour bus swung through Ottawa to pick me up and head down to Chicago for Lollapalooza, arguably one of the coolest festivals in North America. The drive itself was pretty painless; we had a nice bus and the FOH guy supplied homemade tacos and margueritas. A good way to start...

We pulled into Chicago around 10am, parked the bus behind the stage and began our business. The great thing about this festival is that it's right in the heart of downtown in Grant Park, great scenery all around, and you get a shot of the skyline behind almost every stage. It's pretty incredible. Anyways, the show went really well. It was packed with re-located Canadians who started singing the national anthem before the guys went on. It was pretty nuts.

Afterwards, I ran into some friends I had toured with previously, and I had a chance to check out a few of the other bands, and the site of course. Incredible site, great catering, free jeans... What more could you want? Good times all around, but like all good things, it came to an end way too quickly as we had to hit the road to head up to London, ON for a balloon festival...