Day 18: Ottawa, ON
Welcome
Yesterday we played our first ever headline show in Ottawa, Ontario.
We woke up in a new city. Outside the passenger side windows was a brick wall that would have taken nondescript as a compliment. Outside the driver’s side windows was an apartment building, tall, wide, and pleasantly repetitive in its design. I didn’t waste any time with bus breakfasts and headed out to find a professional breakfast maker, the nearest which was a café called Drip House, several blocks away. I arrived at this location five minutes later and was confronted with a sea of tents, piles of bamboo, and propane grills, as Ottawa’s Chinatown prepared itself for the night markets that would be kicking off in a few hours. Drip house provided me with a good view of the proceedings, and I watched decorations being hung and the beginnings of food preparations while I ate my meal, a Southwest Breakfast Sandwich with red and green pepper scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, spicy mayo, and cheese.
It was overcast and pleasantly cool when I left the bus a while later heading out for a self-propelled tour of the city. I first visited the Chaudiere Falls, the once heavily industrialised area where the Ottowa River narrows on its way between the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau. The Ring Dam rations the flow of water to the falls, a sacrifice made in the name of hydroelectric power that is especially felt in the summer months when the level of the river is lower.
I crossed the river, leaving Ottawa and arriving in Gatineau, Quebec, where a cycleway allowed me to enjoy a pleasant jog along the riverfront. Out across the water I could see Parliament Hill, and many of the great administrative buildings of Canada’s government towering over the surrounding lands, spectacular and faintly dystopian.
After enjoying the beautiful parks on this side of the river I crossed back on a historic bridge that is currently enjoying a much-needed bridge spa after more than 120 years of service. This steel truss cantilever bridge was completed in 1901 and named for Alexandra of Denmark, the Queen of the United Kingdom at the time, and I like to think that she was a lover of steel structures for her namesake bridge is a handsome one. The eastern offramp of this span deposited me right next to the Parliament building and I made my way back to the bus via Wellington Street, a street name that any Commonwealth country worth its salt should have, and one that Ottawa has taken very seriously with a swathe of palatial lawns and neogothic government buildings.
The Ottawa Locks in the foreground, looking down at the Ottawa River and The Alexandra Bridge.
Our venue was called the Bronson Centre, and I was told by a mystery man I met driving out of the carpark that it used to be a high school auditorium before being converted into a community venue with a capacity for 1000 standers. I never again saw the mystery man who also told me that he built the venue, but the Wikipedia page does seem to back up his statements (although much of the article is uncited and leads to further suspicions). After further research it does appear that the former high school now provides office facilities for several non-profit organisations and just outside our green room we found a number of garden planters full of ripening summer crops that could be evidence of this.
Judging by the google reviews I had read about the venue we were both excited and pessimistic. The facilities were great, and we set our equipment up and were making noise without a single hiccup. The stage was sizeable and extremely pleasant to play on, no loud subwoofers or brick walls to bounce the sound back at you. Gabe was happy and so were we.
One of the pre-show tasks was to get Bird back in action and like every good piece of repair work in this world it began with a cluster of men standing around the problem and telling you how you should fix it. After an extended consultation they lost interest and left us to it and a couple of lovely venue technicians lent us some tools for the task.
The rivets had to be drilled out from the mounting, and this was accomplished in two stages, first me mushing it up a bit with a power drill and a blunt drill bit, and then Tristan using a screw as a punch and a drumstick as a hammer to wack the old rivet out. Then we used these incredible devices called cable ties to fasten it down and reinforced them with our signature hot pink gaff tape for stability. Bird was back in action and stronger than ever.
Each of us wandered down to the night markets at some point for dinner. By that point it was a crowded affair full of eaters, entertainers, and wavers of giant food menus.
Then it was show time. Princess Chelsea captivated the roomful of Ottawans with delicate melodies followed by jams that climaxed into crushing walls of sound. Our first headline show in Ottawa turned into one of our best shows of the year. The clarity of the sound on stage was unparalleled and playing our songs felt light and easy. The Bronson Centre was full of warm souls, an encouraging crowd that laughed the perfect amount at all our jokes and made us feel welcomed and adored. It was a night we will remember for a long time and we finished it hanging out on the bus with Princess Chelsea, waiting for Placid Thunder to continue our journey east across the great confederation of Canada.
