A Story Of Modern Slavery…?

A Story Of Modern Slavery…?

I have had the chance to tour with Your Favorite Enemies more than once… Actually, I think I have only missed one show in their entire career! You got to understand that before working with them, I am first and foremost a fan… Lol!

Tours are always a wonderful journey… with a very intense-fully-over-booked schedule! Every minute is counted, from morning (somewhere around 5am), up to night (somewhere around 2am)… Which leaves us with a huge 3-hour long night! Not so bad, when you think that many nights are sleepless! Lol! We cherish every hour of sleep that we can get!

Going on a tour is always stressful… You never know what will happen. You can be prepared as much as possible but you can never predict what will arise. And believe me, the unexpected is there more often than not! And obviously, if you have the stress of the preparation add the fact that you are going on your very first tour, by yourself, that you play concerts in multiple cities you have never set foot in, well, let’s just say the stress level gets pretty high pretty fast! The closer you get to the departure date, the worst it gets! And this first tour for Your Favorite Enemies was no exception!

One thing you must know is that the electricity in Canada and in Europe is totally different. Not the same power, not the same plugs either. And they are different pretty much every time you change country… Our then manager obviously knew about this, and made sure to tell us that we would need not only adaptors for the plugs, but also power transformers that would support the incredible amount of things we needed to plug on stage (just think about the guys’ footboards… Lol!)… 2 days before we left!!!!!!! Obviously, we had thought of it before, did our research and made sure everything would be alright once we got there by calling the different venues beforehand. But then again, you never know what will happen, right? (More about this in the weeks to come! Things did get pretty interesting!). So much for the stress level, when you go on thinking “will we be ok with this manager on the road, or does he have other crucial surprises like this for us”… This was our first time on the road and the first time being this far from home!

And then, that very same day Mr. Manager was nice enough to concern himself about electricity, we were also told that we would headline ALL of the shows. All of them. Some with local bands, but some without. Additional stress coming in right there… Basically, we understood that the shows would depend on us. We truly had to do everything. Being a shock at first, it turned into indifference… What could we do about it, anyway, with the tour beginning in just a couple of days? Too late to try and change this, too late to call in local bands (we knew none anyway!).

So every day, before the departure date, which was on September 24th, 2007, the guys were rehearsing in The Pit… And to give them an opportunity to play on a real stage, in front of real people instead of playing in this suffocating minuscule wardrobe lit by a red light, the band had planned 2 shows in Ontario; The Mavericks Bar in Ottawa and The Merchant Tap House in Kingston… We came back from Kingston around 5am, with the sun rising up, the very same day we were leaving for Europe. So back home, after a sleepless night of driving, it was time to pack for Europe!

The shows in Ottawa and Kingston went amazingly well… but also the time we could spend with the people after them… This time, the special relationship we had with the people was what made the stress level go down a little bit…We knew that we would finally, after all this time, be able to meet face to face with so many of you with whom we’d only had the chance to talk over the Internet so far! … A true family reunion!

– Stephanie