Music

Dan Mangan's Home Stretch Visual Tour Diary Pt. 1

by AUX staff

February 2nd – Vancouver to Sicamous

Aidan Knight travels light. So light, in fact, that he regularly eschews a bag of toiletries in favour of a toothbrush tucked jauntily into the breast pocket of his jacket. You can tell he’s from Victoria because his other belongings are rolled together neatly in a MEC dry sac. If Dan has any luggage, I haven’t seen it – months of sustained travel have earned him the eerie ability to move through time and space with an enviable rugged-yet-well-oiled aesthetic.

Leaving Vancouver at the crack of noon, our round of pick-ups was unremarkable, save for the gyroscopic bungee-slinging of Johnny’s double bass inside the trailer and a compulsory stop at Solly’s bagels for schmears and knish. There’s no show tonight: today’s departure is just to cut the drive to Canmore in half, so we take our time. On the highway in the early afternoon the band catches up on jokes learned in the past few months. Dan has been touring Australia with Folk Uke, the notoriously foul-mouthed duo comprised of Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie (daughters of Willie and Arlo, respectively), so there are plenty of new stories to be told.

After a brief stop in Merritt, British Columbia (which appears to be where all the lumber in the province is stored), we made our way to Kamloops for dinner. “We named our tour van after you”, says a voice behind me as I stand in line at the liquor store. It’s Kenton, Dan’s drummer, and he’s not being forward: the clerk’s name really is Virginia, and a lengthy and somewhat awkward explanation of the van’s moniker ensues (the vehicle was purchased with a cash prize from The Verge XM).

The fog between Kamloops and Sicamous bears an unnerving resemblance to the clam chowder (New England, not Boston) Dan had at dinner, and the going is slow. Neil, Dan’s brother/tour manager, handles the drive easily and to many thanks, and we eventually roll into town where our truck and trailer stake claim to 4 parking spaces outside the Super 8. A bare-bones band practice is needed, so the group sets up in one of the rooms and runs through their set, with Dan’s acoustic, a single snare drum, and Aidan’s SG turned low. The set solidified, we burn out the Super 8’s wireless with Youtube videos and repeated considerations of the subtle differences between “bacon” and “beer can” when spoken with a Caribbean accent, and we turn in for the night.

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Jonathan Taggart is a freelance documentary photographer and writer based in Vancouver.

www.jonathantaggart.com
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