Protest the Hero Tour Ends With Bus Battle: Road Report

Canadian prog-metal heroes Protest the Hero have set out across Canada headlining the annual SnoCore tour, despite the fact that the snow has already departed. Still, the core remains and PtH's lead singer Rody Walker is blogging the band's excellent adventures for Spinner.

On the first leg of the journey, they hired a crew off Craigslist, played marbles and abandoned guitarist Tim Millar. In chapter two, they caught a child lying about baseball, traveled back to the stone age and showed off their knowledge of Klingon insults.

In their third tour blog entry, the band played a seniors' centre, lost money on a pogo stick investment and admired a new female friend's feats of strength.

In this final installment, the Protest the Hero fall victim to an April Fool's prank, drink curious cocktails, buy blood capsules, gimp masks and bison burgers before closing out the tour with a showdown on their bus.

Day 9

I set an alarm for 7:30AM so I could make it back to the bus before it left. I had a shower and woke Luke up. We walked down to the lobby of the hotel where we met our driver Larry and then walked back to the bus.

The bus smelled like vodka and stale breath -- it wasn't pleasant. I watched an episode of 'South Park' and then crawled back in my bunk. When I woke up again we were at the venue.

We received a phone call from the guys in Abandon All Ships informing us that they had gotten into a massive argument last night and that they would not be finishing the tour. We failed to realize it was April 1. It was an April Fool's trick and it certainly fooled us.

The show was super early and on some college campus, so needless to say it was pretty f---ing lame.

After the set we went back to the bus and attempted to drink ourselves to early graves. We consumed every drop of booze that we had. We started making strange concoctions, including one drink I had that consisted of Jack Daniels and Activia yogurt. It sounds really disgusting but it was actually quite good.

After the booze was gone we went in search of anything ridiculous we could do. We ended up convincing a young man to snort a line of Creatine. That was mildly entertaining.

We put on some 'South Park' and went to sleep shortly after.

Day 11

We woke in Vancouver -- and not the nice part; the East Hastings part with all the drugs and homeless people.

I immediately had to s---. Luckily, I had just recently downloaded an app called "WC Finder" which locates the closest, cleanest bathroom. So I set out in search of a clean hunny bucket. I was quite concerned as I approached one bathroom because it was in a really s---ty part of town, but the app did not deceive me. The bathroom was clean and nice and it was in a quaint little coffee shop.

The set went pretty well other than this one stupid a--hole in the front who gave us the finger the whole time. I realize he was just playing around because he was enjoying the tunes very much, he just thought he was being funny. This happens quite a bit to me, actually. I think because I exude an overall sense of negativity in a somewhat comedic sense, people get the idea that I will think it's funny to speak to me in a demeaning manner. For the record, I do not find it funny and it's a really good way to get a punch in the face from me.

After the set we had our friends from Callahan on the bus for a party. Their guitar player got pretty drunk and we sort of tricked him into staying with us for the rest of the tour. (We didn't really trick him, we just waited until he was drunk to ask him.)

Day 12

The last day of the tour was a double-header show day: an all-ages show in the early evening and a 19-plus show at night. I was kind of dreading it, to be honest.

I went to a joke store and bought some face paint, blood capsules and a gimp mask. I had no real plan, but it's always good to have that kind of stuff laying around. The owner of the joke store started showing me some magic tricks and I was so enthralled that I almost missed soundcheck.

After soundcheck I went to a pub and had a bison burger. It was the first time I'd ever had bison -- I didn't really like it.

The first show went swimmingly. At one point I asked for a show of hands to see who was legal voting age in the room -- I was shocked to only see five or six hands in the air. For reasons that I cannot explain, that made the rest of the set very vulgar for me.

After the set we hung around and met a few fans, and then we vacated to the bus to have a few beers before the second show.

The second show was by far my favourite show of the tour. The room was packed and everyone was drinking and having a good time. At one point I took a blood capsule and slipped it in some girl's mouth, but when I looked back at her there wasn't any blood coming out of her mouth. I immediately assumed she had swallowed it. However, she explained later that she thought I was trying to date rape her and she spat it out shortly after I gave it to her.

After the show we started the long goodbyes with the other bands. It's pretty lame, but it's a little hard to make new close friends and then walk away from them, most likely to never see them again.

While we were weeping and tickling each others ball crowns someone knocked on the bus door. Our tour manager told them politely that we were busy and that they should leave. They obviously did not get the message because they tore the door open and started parading onto the bus. Dennis (Quaid) got them off the bus quite quickly and a little less politely. One fella started getting a little lippy and seemed to want to fight, at which point our friend Allan from Callahan turned to me and calmly asked, "Can I get him?" to which I responded, "Please."

Allan then leapt around Dennis and threw the kid about five feet into the wall. Then the kid's friends came rushing to his aid. His friends we very lucky that the bar security came out and held Allan back because he was moments away from demolishing all five of them. I have no doubt in my mind that it would have been a flawless victory on Allan's behalf based on size and experience alone.

The moral of the story is: don't knock on bands' bus doors. Our bus is our home, we make a serious effort to meet as many people as possible every night, but when a band goes to their bus it is their way of seeking solitude. We don't get much time to ourselves so we take what time we have very seriously.

Regardless of it all, we are now embarking on a journey from one end of the country to the other. We won't be home for four days, but we plan to make the best of it.