The Lonely Parade (L-R: Augusta Vanhoof Veno, Anwyn Climenhage, and Charlotte Dempsey) play a Halloween Show (they’re dressed as moms). Photo by Keila MacPherson.
Two of Peterborough’s most quickly growing bands, The Beef Boys and The Lonely Parade, recently returned from a 10-day tour of the East Coast. It was both of their first times touring outside of Ontario, and a great showcase for the talent emerging from the city.
Says Brandon Root (The Beef Boys) “We’d been talking about it for a long time, but it didn’t really start coming together until we called The Lonely Parade and got them on board.”
Packing themselves into a single van (Luca Mo (The Beef Boys): “We also should mention Candace—Candace drove our van because none of us had licenses”) and made their way through Quebec, but not before playing to a packed audience at The Garnet to kick off their tour.
Their next show (Oct. 18th) saw them in Fredericton at the Reneu Boutique where they played with The Pastel Skeletons.
“There was this scientist or something there, some guy with a lab coat who was playing with these silver orbs. I don’t know if anyone even knew him. He was like balancing and rolling them around on his hands” says Charlotte Dempsey (The Lonely Parade).
“This guys was ‘that guy’, the guy in all these small town scenes who’s not necessarily into punk rock or anything but just knows that these are the kind of places where he can just hang out and play with his orbs and no one’s going to care, every town sort of has a guy like that, it’s a weird sort of thing that you always see in small scenes, it’s kind of what makes them fun places to play.” Adds Germ Sperman (The Beef Boys).
The bands next moved onto Moncton where they played with the Mike V band at ‘Claude’s House’, says Young Ray Kang (The Beef Boys), “I don’t know that ‘Claude’ has lived in this house for 80 years, I think he’s just an urban myth. It was just this old recording space where kinds put on shows.”
Augusta Vanhoof Veno (The Lonely Parade) says of the show, “it was all ages, which was great because the liquor laws were strict out east. In New Brunswick you have to order something to eat anytime you want to order a beer.” An all ages show was also beneficial since two of the members of The Lonely Parade are underage.
The bands then took a detour to Sackville, a popular place among Canadian Musicians. “We fell in love with the Black Death, a coffee shop there, it was a great town, we liked it so much we went back again on the way home even though we didn’t play there,” says Veno.
They then went to Halifax for the first of four shows, at Plan-B (“‘Plan A’ for us” says Augusta) with The Age. “[They’re] kind of like a lot of people from other more well-known Halifax bands” says Sperman on the band.
Almost all of the bands’ members cited Plan-B as one of the highlights of their tour. Run by a local art collective “Plan B is a non-profit social enterprise co-op providing low cost retail space and training for local small and micro businesses to sell their products” (from the Plan-B Facebook page).
“They had like a performance space, and zine library in the back and all sorts of cool vintage vendors sharing a space” recounts Mo.
The bands next show in Halifax was at ‘The Young Offenders’ Gallery’ where they played with solo act Nigel Chapman. Says Brandon, “It was a house that was basically like a kitchen with nothing in it, where we played and a loft, but the whole gallery was in the kitchen.”
“There were installations in the bathroom,” says Anwyn Climenhage (The Lonely Parade).
“Gallery number two was in the bathroom,” adds Sperman.
Before rounding out their Halifax shows at the Dalhousie Student Union run ‘T-Room’ they played one more show at an all-day house party event.
“A lot of really good bands that played at Pop Explosion played at that show,” says Climenhage.
Bandmate Dempsey adds, “Pop Explosion was why we went; we thought we had got in (to the festival), but we didn’t.”
“When life gives you nothing, make lemons, then make lemonade,” says Veno.
Root then brings up one of the oddest parts of the bands’ trip: “The loft just had dozens and dozens of rabbits just in cages and everywhere. I don’t even know what they were for.”
Says Mo, “You could smell them as soon as you went up the stairs.”
Finally, they made their made back home, stopping again in Quebec City, “We played a murder mystery game we bought at Plan-B”, says Dempsey. Adds Young Ray Kang, “It was endorsed by Vincent Price. It said so on the box.”
The trip back home seems to have been the longest part of the tour. Kang says “for some reason the trip from Quebec City to Peterborough took like twenty hours.”
“I think we got lost a few times,” adds Veno.
Adds Sperman, “It didn’t take that long, but it felt like forever.”
“… and then we smashed everything and anything that to do with the tour,” says Climenhage.
The Lonely Parade didn’t waste any time either, almost immediately heading to Toronto for a show at Lee’s Palace opening for Weezer-cover supergroup ‘Sheezer’.
“We got kicked out and had to leave until 5 minutes before we played and leave 5 minutes later” says Dempsey (referring to playing in a band while in the age of minority when most venues serve alcohol).
“Actually we played with The Lonely Parade again at The Garnet just a couple days later, so it’s like the tour never really ended,” Sperman adds.
When asked about any regrets, Sperman says “I made a bet with this guy that I could do the whole tour in only my underwear, so I bought some Long Johns. I only made it to Quebec City.”