In 1998 I was honored and blessed to be playing music around North America and Japan with my good friend Hayden. I knew it was going to be a year to remember so I bought a video camera and taped every single day. I was even further blessed when The Tragically Hip asked us to open up for them during a US Tour that lasted a few weeks.

Like you've no doubt heard before, The Tragically Hip are gracious folk who treated us well, bothered to watch our performances, and treated us as peers. I've kept a bunch of videos for personal memories, and I've decided to share a few.

Despite playing music almost every day, the Hip played their guts out all the time. ALL THE TIME. Large venue, small venues... it didn't matter.

Our tour opened with a storybook 5-night stint in NYC. I'll never forget watching them play Nautical Disaster on the first night from the side of the stage. I can still get tingles when I think about it. It's one of about a dozen precise mental photos/memories that I have.

By night 3, I was feeling comfortable enough around the band to tape some performances. I'm assuming they don't mind that they are seeing the light of day 18 years(!) later.