Liz Stringer Deals With Stress & Self-Doubt In Canada But Wouldn't Change A Thing

I’ve been in Canada on tour for five weeks now. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, even though I remember so clearly the day I arrived in Toronto and it seems like years ago… Funny how time works, fickle beast.

I spent the first of the two months on tour here between Prince Edward Island (PEI), Nova Scotia and Ontario. I’d never been further East than Ottowa but I’d heard so much about the East Coast, particularly from my friends The East Pointers, a PEI based trio that I toured with in Tasmania in January as part of the Festival Of Small Halls, that I was intrigued and stoked to be heading over there. My East Pointer bros were correct, PEI is beautiful. Gentle green fields dotted with blue, purple and pink Lupins and incredible red soil, found nowhere else in Canada, similar to the Pindan of the South West Kimberley. Against the brightness of the summer sun and the intense blue of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it’s quite a sight to behold.

I flew into Charlottetown, PEI from Toronto, where I was reunited with my lovely mates, and, over the following month, played close to twenty shows in PEI, Nova Scotia and Toronto. I got a taste of the incredible musical heritage of the Maritimes, informed by the Acadian and Scottish ancestry. Generations of fiddlers, guitar and piano players and dancers keep the music and the stories alive, speaking a language around the tunes that I couldn’t understand with my background but was completely fascinated by. And I found it very moving to see those generations, ranging from players in their eighties down to eight year-olds and younger, play the tunes together. The future of the tradition appears to be in very good hands.

I played a bunch of shows in Nova Scotia (New Scotland), culminating in the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso. Stan Rogers is to Canadian songwriting kind of like what Slim Dusty is to Australia. The festival brought together some top shelf songwriters and bands from around the world, including The East Pointers, Andy Brown (a great Canadian songwriter who I’d met for the first time in Cronulla a few years back), The Mae Trio from downtown Castlemaine and my new friends from Scotland the Paul McKenna Band, top lads. It was a fun weekend, negotiating bright sunshine followed by descending sea mists that stuck to our clothes and instruments. It’s probably the first time I’ve gotten sunburnt and had to wear almost literally everything in my suitcase to keep warm on the same weekend…

Nova Scotia is stunningly beautiful and I had a brief but full time there. I played a house concert overlooking crazy ocean views and was driven around Antigonish in a red convertible by my delightful host Carol Anne. I drank wine into the small hours with a publican and a local cop in Lunenburg after a gig and took the ferry from Nova Scotia back to PEI on a sunny, windless afternoon. The East Coast is famous for its friendly hospitality and they well and truly live up to their reputation. I found all of the people I met to be incredibly warm and funny and I wanted for nothing the whole time. And it seems they’re also particularly partial to a beer and are deft hands at downing it… ooff. Many funz were had and I already look forward to my next visit.

During the Maritime adventures, I shunted back to Toronto, Ontario, a city that I’m liking more and more every time I visit, to play a showcase gig with my new label Roaring Girl Records at the Dakota Tavern. Miranda Mulholland, who founded and runs Roaring Girl, played with her duo Harrow Fair as well and it was a treat to see her perform. It feels good to have a base in Canada now, particularly in Toronto, and to be on board with such solid musicians and people like Miranda.

I also played three shows in a row with my mate, and brilliant songwriter, Ron Hawkins at Graffit’s in Kensington Markets, a wicked little bar in a sweet part of Toronto. The kind of hood you only have to walk around in to get stoned, know what I’m sayin’?  Full of characters. Graffiti’s reminded me a lot of some of my favourite Melbourne watering holes and I felt instantly at home. I would actually describe Toronto in general as being Melbourne’s older, slightly tougher cousin. The two cities feel cut from the same cloth, to me at least. After a hair-raising incident with a hotel booking in the Markets I was taken under my publicist Beth’s wing and stayed at her place in her delightfully cool basement during those few days. Jeez, Toronto was HOT.

PEI was probably my favourite place for that first leg, if I had to pick one. I tried lobster for the first time, ate muscles cooked in sea water on a campfire on the beach in Rollo Bay and even went swimming (twice) off the coast of Souris, from one stretch of the many kilometres of beautiful beaches that hug the island. I met a whole bunch of amazing musicians, many of whom I’m so happy to now call my friends and I got to be part of the first Rollo Bay Fiddle Festival Music Camp, teaching songwriting, which led up to the Fiddle Festival itself, now being run by Tim and Koady Chaisson from The East Pointers and a crew of their brothers and cousins, who took over from their much loved uncle Peter who died last year at the festival. The Fiddle Fest celebrated its 40^th year in 2016 and takes place on stunning fields, kept and tended by generations of Chaissons. It was a magical weekend and a testament to family, tradition and a pure love and respect for music. I’m proud to have been a part of it.

As I read this entry back I realise that it paints a fairly idyllic picture of touring. Everything I write here happened, and the way I feel about it all is true too. But I’ve (kind of deliberately) omitted a few incidents; running over my brand new GoPro camera with my own hire car and smashing both screens, dropping my new iPhone in the toilet (back pocket of the jeans = BAD PLACE TO KEEP THE PHONE), experiencing profound moments of self-doubt and huge levels of stress around my album release and the impending tour back home and missing my little nephew like crazy. I’ve eaten some truly awful servo food out of necessity, struggled with a bad bout of jetlag early on, had days where, despite the fact that most of us speak the same language in Canada and Australia, I felt like I couldn’t make myself understood (that afternoon at Western Union was a doozy…) and I’ve spent hours in the car on my own between gigs, left only to my brain and its own (often nutbar-ish) devices. So that’s the other side of it. It’s character building. But sometimes it’s just shit. Like any ‘job’ I guess. Although, to be totally honest, I wouldn’t swap any of the bad stuff if it meant having to let go of the feeling of swimming in the ocean on the other side of the world, or writing a song with new friends, or drinking gin in a caravan and laughing so hard it hurts with a bunch of drunk, happy and fiercely talented musicians on a green field in Rollo Bay, PEI. I’m a lucky idiot to be doing it.

The Fiddle Fest was the last show out East for me. I’m now in Vernon, British Columbia. BC is totally different country. Everything is big here, the trees, the glacial rivers, the mountains. It’s spectacular in a way that’s nothing like the Maritimes, but just as special. I’ve played four shows with my band here, Aussies Cat Leahy (who also happens to be my manager) on drums and Aurora Jane on bass. It’s so fun to be travelling with a band again after a while playing solo. Both set ups have their advantages but it feels good to hang with a crew for this leg. We head up into the mountains on Thursday to play at ArtsWells festival. By all accounts it’s quite a time. And there’s no reception at all. Time to get lost in BC for a bit…

Liz live in Dakota: Taken at The Dakota Tavern in Toronto – Roaring Girl Records Showcase

Northumberland Ferry: Ferry from Caribou, NS to Wood Islands, PEI

FOSH sign: Festival of Small Halls, PEI, first show of tour