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Me, Jon and Alex at the Jonhston Canyon

The Band and I left Montreal on the 30th of September. Since then, we drove about 6000 km in Canada. As I am writing these words, we are driving through British Columbia, heading to Vancouver for our tonight’s performance. The rocky mountains surrounding us, the multitude of trees, the altitude of those high peaks, the plenitude of these lakes and ponds, all of it, is too real to describe. In one day, I have seen the warm and magical Albertan beauty of Banff, of the unexpected Jonhston Canyon, the jaw dropping sight of Lake Louise, it’s water, it’s energy.

Tonight, at our show, the experience will be different. I will most likely see some gloomy lighting, inhale the usual smell of the bar; that is the beer that was drank days before added to the one being consumed at the present moment by the regulars. I will get to see the same people that were at the other bars. They just happen to have different names and different appearances. There will also be the screaming fans (hopefully), the loud music, the sweating bullets, the exhaustion, the energy, The Gods of Now.

Touring Is Like Being Jekyl And Hyde

Most of these experience are extreme opposites, they do not seem to fit together, they do not belong to the same lifestyle. Yet, as a touring musician, all these things are part of the experience, the process that makes touring so great, so harsh, so beautiful and ugly.

I am the drummer/backvocals singer of the band. I am also a PR person, a truck driver, a roadie, a stage manager, a camera man, a video editor, an entertainer, a model and on top of that, a yogi. Talking about focusing on one task here! All of these different things and experience are giving me countless opportunity to live in the here and now.

Why always bring it back the present moment? Why always the Here and Now?

Because it is easy to loose yourself to the experience.

What do you think is the most energizing experience: Being on stage and offering your music to a crowd of exited drunken fans or sitting quietly on a rock surrounded by a multitude of rapids? In my perspective, none of them is better than the other. They are both able to recharge you or to completely drain you. What changes the outcome isn’t the experience itself but how you choose to perceive it. This is what makes some of these Rock Stars turn into some junky megalomaniac or into some depressed and unfulfilled artists.

The Show Must Go On

When the experience hits you, whether it’s reaching your hand to a fan in front of the stage or to a curious bird in the middle of Lake Louise, you have to just take it for what it is, live it fully but without making a huge deal out of it. When that experience is gone, all that’s left of it is distant memories, pictures, videos. All of which cannot reconstruct the experience and make you live it again. You just have to move on to the next one. You cannot recreate the past, nor can you predict the future. Your job is to live in the present the experience in front of you and to keep on doing this at each and every moment.

Sometimes, the roads are long, endless. The bars are empty, the sound is awful, the guys in the band are punchy, the meals are foul and the laptop’s battery is drained. Other times, the scenery is humbling, the shows are dreamlike, the hot tub and sauna are rejuvenating, the guys in the band are the best to be with and the hotel rooms feel like home. The key is balancing it out to make the whole experience a growth opportunity.

Here and Now, as I am writing these words, I am very grateful to be in the van, laptop handy, having the opportunity to share with you the ups and downs of the road, the very unpredictable nature of a band, leaving their hometown to go out and promote their music, laying the foundation for what is coming.

If some of you are interested in some more juicy details of what’s happening on this tour, you may be interested in reading the band’s blog. All the writing is done by Shrecker, our singer and guitar player. I can guarantee you will be entertained in many ways. Pictures and videos are soon to come to validate all that crazy writing.

The Gods of Now

The Diary of the Gods

Cheers, Namaste, Rock on, you pick one.

Zasta

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