August 27th, 2004 – Creekside Theater, Lake Country, BC:

A short two hour drive after playing Kamloops last night, brings us to Lake Country today, which is a fairly large geographical area actually… the Creekside Theater is in Winfield proper, and it’s what’s called a soft seater – picture a theater where you might watch a play or a musical… we’re on a curtained stage, there are rows of movie theater style seats, and a few rows in the front of plastic chairs for extra bodies… and there are many extra bodies here… it’s sold out and from the look of the crowd, it’s more than sold out… but I’m getting ahead of myself…

Soundcheck runs as smooth as it ever does, and Jay leaves us from there to visit with his family, who live just outside of Kelowna – it’s his dad’s birthday and it just happens that we’re here – nice that it works out that way for him… the rest of us are hungry and I inquire of some of the locals where the best place to eat is… the unanimous answer is a place called Ricardo’s, which apparently has the best lasagna available anywhere… a few friends are meeting us there – Ellen, our website designer, and her husband, Ed, and Anne, a friend of Elio’s… Mike and I are so hungry that we arrive at the restaurant at 4:45, and it doesn’t even open until 5:00 pm… but they’re nice enough to let us in anyway, and we sit and have a drink while we wait for the others… the atmosphere in Ricardo’s is quaint italian, and the food is even better than expected… honestly, if you’re anywhere near Winfield, it’s well worth going – call ahead to reserve; it’s usually fairly busy…

Showtime: the show starts at 8:00 pm tonight – fairly early for us, but in a soft seater with no alcohol served, it’s pretty much standard fare… we start with Terminal City tonight, which we don’t usually do anymore, but it’s fun to change it up a bit once in awhile… from the beginning we can tell this audience will be like last night’s – enthusiastic and attentive… the venue isn’t conducive to dancing however… but that doesn’t stop Doug from interrupting Day by Day near the beginning of the tune to cajole them into dancing in their seats… at first, nothing happens… but by the end of the tune, the entire audience is standing and dancing next to their seats! And I’m surprised once more at Doug’s persuasive abilities… this is one of those shows where absolutely nothing can go wrong, and the audience makes this a night to remember… after we’re done, the background music starts, but the crowd completely drowns it out with their demand for an encore… and we comply with two more songs, ending the evening with one of our newer tunes, Cinderella… it’s a little strange to be done by 10:00 pm, when that’s usually the time we take the stage, but it leaves us lots of time for visiting with Ellen and Ed back at the hotel, so it’s all good… a bit of a haul tomorrow – about six hours to Invermere, so we’re leaving at 9:00 am… talk to you then! Marc.