breaking and entering in Montréal, & St-Jean-sur-Richelieu

We found another hall in which to sing in Montréal.... I do not think we have to come to the end of our search to perform in every possible place here!
This time it was Patro Le Prévost auditorium... perhaps our sixth venue after TV, radio, Jazz Festival (open air), Juste pour Rire, Pierre Peladeau & Chapelle Historique...

A fine lunchtime (vibrant) audience greeted us for two hours of jollity... & they bought songbooks and CDs too... how splendid.

At the end of our show, especially complicated as we were needing to rush on to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu for an evening performance, we found ourselves locked out of the dressing room:- here is what they did to their door (it wasn't us, guv!)...

Then we did get to go to SJR, although the traffic issues which plague Montréal at peak time did make us sit about in traffic all the way to Pont Jacques-Cartier, and after... but we managed to get there in time to perform... sound check, who needs 'em.... The tech staff & everyone else at Cabaret-Théâtre Vieux St-Jean were terrific & the audience lapped up everything we offered with great enthusiasm... All done and dusted by 7.20... a busy day!!

Thank you to all at l'Agence Station Bleue for their hard work on our behalf...

The pleasure of Ontario

Four excellent places to stop and enjoy autumnal Ontario...

Deep River, Orillia, Burlington & Lakefield.

In Deep River, we started with a lunchtime performance to lots of schoolchildren, before the evening show... they were clearly very excited... I suspect they may have decided before we showed up that we might be boring... we showed them! 
Lots of hilarity...

There was a 15-minute Q&A after this; one question was how old we are (clearly... very!); Richard asked them to guess our combined age... 736 was the loudest and first guess!  How very Old Testament.

We saw this wonderful sign in a shop-window... presumably it's all about Thanksgiving (which has just happened over here) excess... funny ol' habits here in Canada!

Splendid day here, and Jim, the light and sound man made everything sound wonderful!



Then on to Orillia & the excellent Orillia Opera House - gloriously shortened to (you guessed it!):

OOH

Another excellent place in which to sing and with the Jazz Festival over three days when we are here, awash with music in every bar, café and spare space in the town... great.  We heard a super trio over lunch (with real espresso). Great bookshops too...
The fantastic autumnal colours are all over the place too - our hotel was here on a lake by a park - from deep reds through orange and brown to yellow... excellent.

Then two gigs on one day, a lunchtime at Burlington Arts Centre, followed by an interview onstage by Barbara Budd - esteemed Canadian actress and CBC presenter... she was very professional of course and teased out all our secrets!  The audience tittered...

...and quickly on to Lakefield - return visit after almost exactly 4 years...last time we got a puncture here and then had our internal flight cancelled because of fog & had to drive for miles & miles the next day.... no such problems this time!  Lovely to be back (and they said this almost never happens)... We were looked after as before, in grand style and enjoyed Lakeside's cuisine and wine.  The Hall was wonderful to sing in too...  Some members of the audience cheated and already knew all the words to The Lambeth Walk... I still made them have a practice, of course.

Mike stopped off for a bit of electioneering (I don't know where he finds the time)...

We then found out on the way to Québec what Bob was going to do in January....
Following Mike's lead, here he is canvassing for office:- to be Mayor of Kingston [ON] - outside the beautifully apportioned Wendy's car park-cum-rubbish tip.... All the Best, mate!

So here we are in Montréal, one of our favourite cities... three concerts to come here at St Jean sur Richelieu, Montréal itself & Repentigny...[October 23rd - 25th]... bring it on!
Details of gigs HERE