Canadian superstars Our Lady Peace get clumsy in America
Day 1 - July 24th - New York City

To reduce a day like this to a few hundred words is a bit of a challenge. Not that our life's anything to complain about -- its just that, for a musician, it seems to exist purely in the extremes: either too busy or too bored to tears.

For the two days leading up to today, we were basically trapped at an under construction Holiday Inn in a virtually underwater Charlotte, N.C. -- not anyone's idea of excitement! And when we finally reach show day, there's a flash flood watch in effect. This might lessen the turn-out just a bit -- why do these things follow us around? This was also our first day with Maypole (nice bunch of people), who we'll be touring with for the next month. The 100 or so brave souls that did show up were a good crowd that really got intothe show and despite all odds we had a ball.

The next day things get started a little early when we get together at 10:00 a.m. for breakfast -- everyone is a little slow (not too unusual!) but functional, not too surprising considering we didn't get to sleep until 3 or 4 a.m. The hotel shuttle bus takes us to the airport for a flight to New York where we're playing on a taping of MTV's Oddville (cool but weird!). Of course, we're concerned about the weather. Charlotte has received over a foot of rain in the last day and a half, so delays seem likely.

However, it seems that luck is on our side, as we board the plane right on time, but it's short-lived -- the pilot announces that there's some bad weather over NYC and we won't be leaving for another hour. So, as usual, that leaves us with *no* time to spare, and requires a mad dash through LaGuardia. Picture a gang with guitars that keeps knocking over business commuters at random -- not a pretty sight.

A van drives us to the studio in afternoon rush hour traffic. I suppose this is karmic payment for our actions at the airport, since the driver is the only one who seems unaware of our imminent death. We arrive with about five minutes to spare, set up and sound check on unfamiliar rental gear and of course, one of the pieces of gear that I brought decides that yesterday was it's last day on the job. Oh well, it's too late to do anything about it, so I'll just do without. During the taping of the first part of the show, we barely get the chance to put on a clean shirt in time to play at the end. We're intro'd and proceed to play a four-and-a-half minute song in three-and-a-half minutes because that's all the time we're allowed.

As we play I notice the "the amazing cross-eyed family" and assorted characters (including some guy in a monkey suit) dancing on the other part of the set. The irony of this is that the song, "Superman's Dead" from our album "Clumsy," is about the loss of heroes and role models in the media, in favor of cheap titillation. Hmmm ... the message may have been a little diluted ... d'you think?

Day 2 - July 25 - Greensboro, S.C.

After the show we're hustled back into the van of doom and back to the airport from where we fly to Greensboro S.C. and then drive to Winston/Salem. We arrive at about 10:45 p.m., giving us an hour to spare before we go on stage to do a full set. The club is packed and the show is a blast -- hot, sweaty and loud -- the three best things about club shows. After our set, we hang out a bit and say hi to some kids and generally crash. Then we drive overnight to Charleston, S.C. for the next day, which we have off.

So in three days we will have had two days in one place for one show, and one day that encompassed five cities and two shows. Yeah, this is what we always wished we could do -- but when do we get to sleep?