It's a long way to Toronto from Ottawa. I occasionally bitch at Derek about his driving-he's averaging 80-85 mph on a road with a posted limit of maybe 50 mph. Decide that falling asleep is the better option and even manage to do so for a while.

We arrive at the Global Village Backpacker's around 6:30 p.m. or so. I go inside to check in. Experience the slowest check-in of my life, except for the time Derek and I checked into the airport in Milan and ended up behind a family of 6 with a metric shitload of baggage at the end of our honeymoon in 1995. Remain outwardly genial, despite the fact that inside I'm tearing my hair and gnashing my teeth in frustration. I'm good at that. Finally get the key and linens and drag our gear to the third floor of the hostel, only to find that we don't need the key, as the door's been smashed in. Pieces of the lock and doorjamb litter the floor. This is most uncool. No way are we going to leave our stuff in an unsecured room.

I go back downstairs to talk to the desk staff, who regret to inform me that they don't have another quad room available, but they could put two of us in one room and the other in another room. This does not appeal to us, so I call around to try to find another room, no easy task on a weekend when most every place has been booked solid from the week before. Eventually find a room at the Rex Hotel for less money than the hostel would've cost, but they don't take reservations.

We set off to find the hotel and go the wrong way for a while, then turn around and go back the other way, angsting all the while as to whether it'll still be available when we get there. Luckily, it is, though we have a minor drama about whether we should stay there or just forgo renting a room and drive to Rochester, New York after the show. I weigh in with my desire to have a place to rest and change clothes and stuff. That works.

The Rex reminds me of an Australian pub hotel. There's a bar and performance space on the ground floor. A bit run-down, but clean, and the employees are friendly. Some guy noodles at the piano as we check in. Only one flight of stairs to brave this time, thank goodness. I nap for a little while, then we get dressed for our final Whitlams gig. We grab our stacks of CDs and hit the town.

Arrive at Lee's Palace with plenty of time to spare. We get our hands stamped and go back outside to see if we can get a bite. Derek gets into a bit of a snit for some reason which escapes me and walks off for a bit. Jude and I go to a juice bar a few doors down and get a smoothie and a cookie for me and carrot juice for her. Jude's not hungry, since she bought a vegetarian hot dog from a street vendor on the way, but my stomach is pretty empty and I plan to drink at the club. I hope the smoothie and cookie are enough to keep me from feeling sick from alcohol. Derek returns and reveals that he ate at Taco Bell on the next block. Oh well. We enter Lee's and snag a chair at a table down on the edge of the dance floor.

A woman spots our Whitlams shirts and asks if we're with the band. Heh. Nope, we're just dedicated fans trying to drum up support for the boys. Turns out she's from Bondi. She's on holiday and happened to check the Whitlams website that day, found that they were in town that very night. It's serendipity, baby! Encourage her to go over and sign the FOW book, which is sitting on a table near the back along with a bunch of shirts and CDs. Huh, that's the only place I saw them do that out of these 3 gigs. Bondi chick wants to buy one of the purple "Learning Your ABC's" tour shirts, but someone else gets the last one just as she gets there. Later I see her borrow that shirt for a moment so that her friend can take a picture of her with it draped across her front.

We sit at a table near the bar. Various band members emerge from time to time before the show in order to get drinks, I guess, and greet us on their way. If they're sick of seeing us after a few days, they manage to hide it very well. Lots of media types roaming around. They don't have cider at the bar, so I order a hard cranberry-lemonade. Find out that I didn't have quite enough in my stomach to stave off stomach upset completely after all, but it's not too bad. Visit the loo and laugh at a bit of graffiti that reads, "Mike is a fascist, a coke addict, and a bad driver." I'm sure it's the last one that really hurts.

The band take the stage. There's a padded barricade between it and the dance floor. The stage is raised several feet, so I've got a good view of everyone from down front. Lee's has the best lighting of the three venues we've visited, so my flashless 400- and 800-speed pictures of this night probably have the best chance of successful processing.

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All text, photos, and illustrations by Laurie Brunner © 1999, EXCEPT the FOW T-shirt gif and FOW logo, linked from the Whitlams home page.