A while back I found out there were going to be two Virgin Festivals this summer. The one in Toronto is returning from last year and they added a new one for Vancouver. The good news was the dates for the Vancouver fest landed the week before Sasquatch Festival in Washington. From the beginning of starting the business I’ve always wanted to sling cream outside of the US and with my new passport in hand, it was time to venture north of the border.
Can you imagine how tricky it is crossing international borders with an ice cream truck? Apparently you’re supposed to have work visas/permits if you’re doing any work in another country but since I was just buying ice cream at a local distributor and giving it away for free, the folks at custom weren’t sure what to make of it all. Everyone was super friendly though and it took just over an hour to get through emigration and to have Bessie searched by the customs agents. Once I made it into Vancouver I headed straight to the Railway Club for the CD release party for the Choir Practice. I still can’t believe how lucky I was that they happened to be performing on the same night I rolled into town.
Ok… so here’s a simple rule of thumb. Don’t buy ice cream in Canada. Or.. at least wholesale. It costs almost twice as much as in the US. Todd and I headed over to Rainbow Ice Cream just south of town on Saturday to pick up about 1000 treats and it took over three hours before we were back on the road. And… it just so happened that because of the holiday weekend, we weren’t able to score any dry ice. Thanks to Todd’s neighbor for letting us plug the truck in for a couple nights.
The festival was on Sunday and Monday because of Victoria Day. The weather on the first morning was sketchy at best. We took the back way into Thunderbird Stadium at the University of British Columbia (UBC) as the clouds spit a constant drizzle. Before too long we had Bessie parked in a prime spot backstage but we needed the weather to clear up a bit if we were going to move some product. Occasionally the clouds would part but it didn’t take long before the rain returned.
Initially MUSE was slated to play the festival and that was the main band I was hoping to see. Due to scheduling conflicts they dropped off the bill months in advance. So… the lineup wasn’t necessarily my favorite bands but it did have a lot of bands I was curious about and generally speaking, I like rock n’ roll. For most of the day I hung out by the truck and tried to convince people they weren’t cold or wet and that ice cream would turn their day around. It worked a few times but we ended up giving away less than 10% of our stash that day which meant we were going to have a lot left over for Monday.
Some of the highlights of the first day were a photoshoot I did for Levi’s Canada (vote for me to be a model for them HERE), Stars of Track and Field, and My Chemical Romance. It’s amazing how I can go to so many festivals and listen to so much music yet never have heard anything by My Chemical Romance. From the looks of the pictures I’d seen and the fact that their last album was titled The Black Parade, I figured it’d be mopey, overly dramatic music. I was surprised to hear that, for the most part, MCR is a pop/rock band with some anthemic tunes that young girls love to sing along too. It was especially cool seeing a plume of steam rising from the crowd during their set.
The weather for Monday was set to be better and thankfully the forecast was correct. After some breakfast we loaded up Chris, Briana, and Carly into the truck and headed toward the stadium. On the way we picked up Colin, the other half of The Gay Straights and rolled back into the same spot we had been the day before.
Most of the crew was more into the lineup on Monday and I’m sure the weather forecast also played a factor. Local hero’s We Say Party! You Say Die! was on early in the day and a lot of the crew ran out to shoot and dance to their set. Metric was the band I was most interested in catching that day and they came through big time. I’d seen them play a couple times before but this set was the one that really made me get into their music. It was cool too because the whole band came over together afterwards and got some ice cream and t-shirts. Smoosh was very uplifting as well and their
Bloc Party cover had me singing along trying to figure out what song it was they were playing. They also came by the truck and were very nice and appreciative of the free ice cream.
The Killers were headlining the second day and a lot of people wanted to check them out. Unfortunately they didn’t want us to take pictures and I can kinda understand why. Even though they’re a HUGE band and have been touring the world for a couple years, there’s just no “soul” in their music. Brandon Flowers is a decent front man but all his moves just seems like he’s posturing for something instead of feeling what he’s preaching. What made me think of this was when I saw Aaron Behrens from Ghostland Observatory a week later at Sasquatch. Now that man is sexy as hell and knows how to get down on stage. It actually worked out for the better because we still had a couple hundred treats on board and we pulled out in front of the venue before their encore and positioned the truck so that we could give away most of the remaining treats in our custom White Stripes boxes with stickers. It didn’t take long to run through what we had left so I started just giving away stickers until it thinned out enough for us to walk around and pick up our trash before calling it a night.
Virgin Festival in Toronto is happening on Sept 8 & 9 with headliners Smashing Pumpkins, Bjork and The Killers. If we can find a way to get a Bessita out there we’ll be giving away loads more ice cream. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it all works out.
