Sam Roberts Band, Bala, ON (7-19-08)

I got up early in Toronto today to go pick up a rental car and drive down to Bala for a weekend at The Kee and the cottage. With the traffic, it took me about 3 hours to get there, but it was worth it. Bala is a small cottage town north of Toronto. There's a grocery store, a coffee shop, a Beer Store, LCBO and a couple local artisan places. And there's The Kee.

The Kee is an old roadhouse where they have shows all summer long. Pack in 1000 kids, sell 'em all the beer in town and voila, you have a party. We're there for 2 nights, and the deal is you get put up at some cottages down by the lake. It's pretty amazing. Basically set up and soundcheck on day one and spend the rest of the time sitting on the deck or the dock, beside the bbq with a cooler by your side. It's a great working vacation, and usually a bunch of the band's friends and family come up too so it can get pretty big. Tonight, one of the guys' friends cooked a great pasta dinner for us too. It was nice to actually have a home-cooked style meal after weeks and weeks of Subway and festival catering.

The show the first night was great. The kids loved it as usual. The place was packed, the humidity was ridiculous and it was hot. It was really nice to be able to go sit down by the water after it was over...