Blues Guys at Windsor Bluesfest. Photo By Charlie O'Brien

We’re already booking our 2012 events throughout the year!  So contact us as soon as possible to be sure we secure your dates for:

We can’t wait to ring in [...]]]> We’re ringing in 2012 in a BIG WAY again this year! We’re starting out at the Ajax Community New Years Eve Party from 6-8:30. Then we’re heading to Toronto’s trendy St. Lawrence Market district to visit our old friends at Pravda Vodka Bar to count down to midnight from 9′ Up!

We can’t wait to ring in the New Year and celebrate the start of our 9th Season! 2011 has been a landmark year for us, and we’re so excited to see what this year has in store! We’re already booking tour dates for the upcoming year and it’s looking to be our biggest year yet! So stay tuned to our site for details, and if you’re a festival organizer, make sure to contact us ASAP to secure your dates for this year!

The holidays are just around the corner!  Can you believe it?  It’s time to deck the halls, jingle those bells, and get ready for Santa Claus Parades!  Here’s a list of holiday events and parades you can find us at this year!  We’ll try to keep the schedule as up to date as we [...]]]>

Santa Elvis

The holidays are just around the corner!  Can you believe it?  It’s time to deck the halls, jingle those bells, and get ready for Santa Claus Parades!  Here’s a list of holiday events and parades you can find us at this year!  We’ll try to keep the schedule as up to date as we can so you know where to find us and join in the fun.

Nov. 13- Weston Santa Claus Parade
Nov. 19- Niagara Santa Claus Parade
Nov. 26- Amherstberg Santa Claus Parade
Nov. 27- Kingsville Santa Claus Parade
Dec. 2-Tecumseh Santa Claus Parade
Dec. 3- Windsor Santa Claus Parade
Dec. 9- Devonshire Mall (Windsor, ON)
Dec. 10- Essex Santa Claus Parade

Stay tuned for more dates and be ready for our promo kits coming out this winter for 2012 events!

It began on Wednesday afternoon with our arrival into Waterloo.  We checked in at the hotel and made our way to the site of the Gala.  It took some time to assemble our booth in time for [...]]]> Stilt Guys have returned from their inaugural visit to the Sunlife Financial Waterloo Busker Carnival and WOW!  What a week!!!

It began on Wednesday afternoon with our arrival into Waterloo.  We checked in at the hotel and made our way to the site of the Gala.  It took some time to assemble our booth in time for the evening, but the new booth was looking sharp!  It made a big splash and Tiny also did some roaming around the performance space taking in the laughs and even some treats from some of the food sponsors.  They had everything from deserts, to delicious entrees, spring rolls and more!  This was truly a high class event and the Buskers all put on a great show!  No one had even noticed the huge storm that had happened outside (thank goodness the event was indoors!).

Here’s a great video of Art$Fortune in action in Waterloo:

Thursday, we headed to the Trinity Village Retirement home with another Busker from the Festival, Benny B.  We were invited to come put on a show for the residents and their families.  The weather was still a bit touchy, so we moved the show inside.  We weren’t able to do our finale due to height restrictions, but the residents were all very attentive and enthusiastic to have us there.  This is a long standing tradition with the festival- to send some Buskers to Trinity Village- so that even those who aren’t able to make it out to the festival are still able to get a taste of the event and join in the fun.  This was truly a heart warming show and we were very glad to be invited to be a part of it.

With that show completed, we made our way down to the green room near the site.  We got all of our gear unloaded and began suiting up for the opening ceremonies.  Our 9′ Mounties made our first impression at the festival and stuck around during the entire opening ceremony, and even got to present the gift to the Title Sponsor: Sun Life Financial!  We were an instant hit with the crowd and loved taking in the huge crowd in their beautiful public square!

The rest of the weekend was an absolute blast!  All the glowing recommendations about the festival we had heard from other Buskers on the circuit were understatements!  The crowds were huge in UpTown Waterloo!  We had large crowds around our booth, and at times couldn’t even move on our walkabouts!  When 9′ Elvis and Long, Tall Elvis took to the street on Saturday, we couldn’t move for 40 minutes as such a huge crowd had formed around us!  We could have done a circle show right then and our crowd would’ve been gigantic!  The camera flashes were constant and everyone was coming up to take photos with us and hear our versions of Elvis’ tunes.  We felt like celebrities!

Our booth also got amazing attention with our bags selling out left and right.  Festival attendees kept crowding around to see if the robot in the booth was real or fake and lined up to get their fortune.  A few people were a little scared of Art$Fortune, but they warmed up eventually…

We wish we could share all of our memories from the weekend, but it would be a small novel!   The volunteers, organizers, sponsors and fellow performers were all among the friendliest, helpful and most supportive we’ve ever encountered!  Waterloo has definitely become one of our new favourite spots!  We hope to be back there very soon, and would love to return to this amazing festival next year!

Up next:  We’ve got a busy week ahead with a visit to the University of Windsor’s Welcome Week event at the Riverfront on Tuesday, and then we’re off to Port Credit for one of our favourite events of the year:  The Southside Shuffle (Sept. 9-11, 2011 @ Memorial Park)!  This is a festival we’ve been a part of for many years and we can’t wait to be back with our Port Credit and Shuffle friends, and see some of the usual suspects that we meet and every Blues Festival we travel too.  Blues fans are truly amazing people and we can’t wait to party in Port Credit!

What a crazy weekend in Windsor!  With hot muggy days, it was the perfect setting for cool blues at night!  And Stilt Guys had a lot of leg work to do this past weekend.

We started off friday afternoon in Belle River, ON. for the Sunsplash Car Show sponsored by Chuck Fram’s Speed [...]]]>

Photo by George Brooks

What a crazy weekend in Windsor!  With hot muggy days, it was the perfect setting for cool blues at night!  And Stilt Guys had a lot of leg work to do this past weekend.

We started off friday afternoon in Belle River, ON. for the Sunsplash Car Show sponsored by Chuck Fram’s Speed Shop.  We were there with our 9′ Elvi and had a blast boogying in up and down the main street which was packed with classic cars as far as the eye could see!  We were also pleased to help him promote the Windsor Weekend of racing coming up September 9-12 and a lot of people are excited for that!

With no time to rest and temperatures still in the 90′s (plus humidity) we were off the Walkerville Art Walk where our Mardis Gras Clowns had a blast roaming the streets and popping in and out of the shops which featured numerous local artists and their creations.  We even made it just in time for a flash mob which performed a great dance number right in the street!  There was everything from sculptures, watercolours, spray paint artists, caricatures and more!

With temperatures still holding on (and us sweating faster than we could drink) we were off to the first night of Windsor Bluesfest.  We were welcomed to a ton of old friends backstage at the brand new stage built in festival plaza and couldn’t wait to get our legs on!  We grabbed a quick bite to eat, and were suited up as Detroit Dave and Tiny Blues with no time to loose!  Before heading out to the crowd, we decided to take a peak from the new stage and the crowd cheered as soon as we appeared (and the view from our end was pretty good too!).  The new stage was truly a marvel and felt great on our feet. After a series of pictures, we made our way down to crowd level, and could barely go a few steps without more anxious people waiting to take a picture.

This was our 8th appearance at Windsor Bluesfest, and far from tiring of us, the crowd let us know that we’re officially a fixture there and it wouldn’t be the same without us!  We also got tons of questions about England, and saw quite a few friendly faces from Memphis earlier this year!  Soon enough, Tim Robbins was on the stage and the crowds couldn’t get enough of his folk/blues sound.

Saturday morning gave us some time to relax and have breakfast, but we were back in Walkerville for 1 O’clock and spent the afternoon with a ton of smiling faces (despite the heat). We also went from store to store popping in to see who had the best air conditioning! We took a ton of great pictures, saw quite a few familiar faces, and even made some new friends! We were thrilled to be a part of such a great event, and what a great warmup for the evening.

Saturday night was electric at Bluesfest. Once we arrived on site, we could already see the place was packed, and as the night rolled on, more and more still were filing in. Once Steven page took the stage, it was hard to see the ground anywhere on the site, but we all still found room to dance. Page had the crowd on their feet for almost the whole set. But the fun didn’t stop there (as if a former Barenaked Lady wasn’t enough), Ten years after took the stage and the crowd went crazy. And the band was pretty crazy for the Windsor crowd too and put on an amazing show to a crowd of roughly 10,000! Every song got a roar from the crowd as the opening notes of each song brought you back to the first time you heard each hit.

Sunday gave us the daytime to relax a bit (which was nice after such a full two days). And with temperatures soaring even higher, it took some time for the crowd to roll in. But there was still a very appreciative audience on Sunday. Alto Reed rocked the house with an amazing show and some old favourites. And we were having such a great time on friday, we worked out a surprise for the after party where we burst through the door of the Old Vic on our Stilts just as the band happened to be playing “Sweet Home Chicago”. The timing couldn’t have been any better and it was a truly fun way for us to wrap up the weekend. We got to chat face to face with some of our old friends and people loved the chance to talk with us in a more relaxed setting.

What an amazing weekend! Windsor-Essex really does know how to put on a party and we love being there for it. We’re back this weekend in Chatham for the opening of their new park with our show and Tiny and Shorty will be walking about. We may also be popping in a couple other places throughout the weekend, so keep your eyes open!

The Stilt Guys have been having a busy June!  With stops at the Orangeville Blues and Jazz festival, Chatham Kent Youth Festival, Amherstburg Arena Opening event and the Mississauga Waterfont festival, it’s been a great kick off to the bring in the Summer Season!  This past weekend we brought our Mardis Gras Guys [...]]]>

Photo from Terri

The Stilt Guys have been having a busy June!  With stops at the Orangeville Blues and Jazz festival, Chatham Kent Youth Festival, Amherstburg Arena Opening event and the Mississauga Waterfont festival, it’s been a great kick off to the bring in the Summer Season!  This past weekend we brought our Mardis Gras Guys down to Amherstburg, ON. for their community event celebrating their new facilities which include a miracle league diamond!  We had a ton of fun playing on the side lines of our first miracle league game which allows persons who are differently abled to have access to play organized baseball!  And boy did we have a ton of fun cheering on the players!

With no time to rest, we were heading up the 401 to Port Credit for our second year at the Mississauga Waterfront Festival!  We brought our beach clowns and 9′ pirates to roam the grounds and fill up the Sun Life Financial Busker’s Square.  There was a ton of interactive games and activities, great shows for the kids and parents from a variety of cultures and even some YTV friends!  Once the sun went down, parents got to rock out to artists such as Steven Page, Goddo and even a Beatles tribute band!  What a great way to spend Father’s day with your family where you never have to look far for the next exciting activity!

The Stilt Guys show no sign of slowing down as Friday morning, Tiny will be in Waterloo for the Sun Life Financial Kick-off to Summer Event (with all his beach wear ready to go!), before Tiny and Shorty meet up in Windsor to party at Summerfest all Weekend!  We’ll be bringing a ton of great characters, and you never know where we’ll pop up!

What’s next for the Stilt Guys?  Immediately from Summerfest, we’re off to Toronto to catch our Flight to England for the Canada Day London on July 1st!  We’re bringing our legs across the Pond and are sure to create a ton of Tall Tales along the way!  Be sure to keep your eyes on our Facebook and Twitter pages to follow along with the fun as your Canadian Tall Boys make their first trip overseas to serve as Ambassadors for Canada and the Tourism Windsor-Essex-Pelee Island!

The morning of Day 3 was not easy to get out of bed.  By the last day of any weekend performing the body starts to feel the effects of the physical rigor you’ve placed on it.  [...]]]>

The guys with the Honorary Consul to Canada, Shawn Danko (Kooky Canuck), and Mike of the Black Pig BBQ Team

The morning of Day 3 was not easy to get out of bed.  By the last day of any weekend performing the body starts to feel the effects of the physical rigor you’ve placed on it.  But we needed to everything packed and check out since we needed to be on site by 11 am for the press conference with the Mayor of Memphis!  We got our bags packed and ready to go for our flight later that night (since we’d be leaving straight from the site) and hitched a ride down to the fairgrounds for our last day at the BBQ fest.

The Black Pig BBQ team was already hard at work (and had been for hours) preparing meat for the day and the grills were already going in full force.  For the competitors, their minds were now shifting from the party to the weight of the competition and some entries were already on their way to the judges’ table.  With one quick coffee, we were up on our legs and on our way to the press conference.

Dressed in our finest Mountie uniforms and more Tourism Windsor Essex gift bags in hand, we made our way and were greeted by our new friend from the city of Memphis team.  He let us know the press conference was moved back an hour, so we made our way to areas of the site we hadn’t been able to see yet.  We stopped along the way as crowds formed to take picture and were pulled into some tents (in between their VIP tours) to take photos with competitors and let them know Canada was here!  We met so many great people and spent a good bit of time with the Shed BBQ.  They had a great set up with a pig roaster made out of a classic car and an old RV tricked out as their kitchen.  It had a wonderful Deep-South feel and had a great time talking with all of them.  One of their team members had actually been a clown herself for over twenty years and came from a long line of clowns!  It was amazing to hear stories about her clown adventures, and her grandfather who had served in WW1 and was a natural born clown.

The great people we meet on our journeys and the stories they share with are one of the amazing perks of our job.  We’re privileged in sharing our entertainment and giving all we have to it and, in return, so many people share back with us in their personal stories.  I wish I had the time to sit and write all of them down.  We could fill volumes with all of the amazing stories we hear!

Having made our rounds we had to get back to the press conference!  As we returned to the City tent there were already a small group of councilors and press assembling, so we turned on our Canadian charm and began spreading the word about the Kooky Canuck bringing us down and that the Canadian team was here competing!  “Canada does everything in a big way, and that’s why we’re here from Windsor, Ontario!  We’re in it to win it!”

The Mayor drove up with a small escort of staff in a golf cart (with style!), and after a quick briefing, walked right over.  He shook our hands and let us know what a pleasure it was to meet us.  We gave him a gift bag with all the Tourism Windsor-Essex swag and let him know who were and why we were here.  A big smile appeared on his face and he handed us his card and said, “Ya’ll are welcome back here anytime!”  We grabbed a few pictures with the Mayor and he was off into the tent to greet the reporters and deliver his speech about the Memphis flood reports and what a huge success the Memphis in May World BBQ Championships has been this year!  We joined in the roaring applause to congratulate the teams and organizers of the event and that Memphis was still open for business “Come Hell or Highwater”!

Our Mounties are full of Surprises at the BBQ Championships in Memphis

After the conference, we made our way back to the tent and began attracting attention to Canada’s booth.  The team was still hard at work, but scores of people still dropped in to say hi and get their picture taken.  Just as we were preparing to take off our legs, clouds began to roll in and the weather began to look uncertain.  We dismounted from our legs and packed up the gear as quickly as we could to keep it out of the rain.  A few short bursts of rain would begin off and on, but overall the clouds held in their moisture and the BBQ continued unaffected.  After all the water the championship has had to contend with from the Mississippi, a few rain-drops weren’t about to stop them now.

We had roughly an hour before we had to leave for the airport, so we made our way quickly to a few tents around the site to say our goodbyes and thank them for the hospitality.  We could have spent the whole day talking to any one of the teams, but we needed to keep it brief.  We spent as much time as we could at each tent before heading back to our “Canadian Embassy” on site, and saying our goodbyes there.

We were only a short drive from the airport and made it there in only moments.  We checked in our bags, and thanked Shawn again for all of his hospitality and our sincere thanks for bringing us down for the BBQ Cook-Off.  It was truly awe inspiring to see how the South does BBQ and have truly been spoiled from the whole experience.  With that, we made our way through airport security and found our departure gate.

The first leg of the flight was delayed in arriving to meet our connecting flight in Atlanta.  Storms occurring across the South forced our flight to divert further South to clear the weather, and we arrived at the gate minutes before our flight to Detroit was going to leave at another gate across the terminal.  We exited the plane as quickly as we could and began sprinting through the terminal to catch our next flight.

“This is your final boarding call for flight ***** to Detroit…” was heard over the intercom and we were still only half way to our gate.  “If only we still had our Stilts on, we may be able to make it there in half the time” I thought.  But moments before they were going to close to door to our plane, we arrived panting with boarding passes outstretched.  We had made it with mere seconds to spare and were on our way to Detroit.

We arrived at Detroit airport just shy of Midnight local time and retrieved our bags to meet our ride back to home soil.  A short half hour drive and we were on the Ambassador bridge crossing over the Detroit River and at the customs gate.  We had a much easier time coming back through the Canadian Customs than we had with the American and were back at Mark’s place “shortly” (no pun intended) after 1 AM.  Normally, this is where sleep would be imminent; however, there was no rest for us tonight as Day 3 would be a long one!

We rummaged through our luggage, grabbing what was necessary for our gig 8 hours from now in Toronto.  We repacked what was needed and hopped in the car at about 1:30am local time.  We hit the nearest Tim Hortons to prepare us for the 4-hour drive and grabbed our Large Coffees and Muffins to go. With classic vinyl hits coming through the satellite radio, we were already reminiscing about our favourite moments from the weekend and made for great conversation to keep us awake and alert!  We made a brief stop at a highway rest stop to grab some McDonalds to make it through the last leg of our journey and, aside from some brief patches of fog, were in downtown Toronto at about 6 am.

We stopped off at my apartment to drop off any unnecessary gear, and try to freshen ourselves up at prepare ourselves for another gig.  Mark took a quick walk around the block enjoying the fresh air to fight off the sleep, while I gave in to a 20 minute power nap.  We made our way over to a breakfast joint in the village and enjoyed a fresh cup of coffee before hopping back in the car and heading to North York.  Once we were on site, Karen was already there hard at work preparing the site for the ribbon cutting ceremony.  We said our hellos and used a nearby loading dock as our dressing room.  The sky was filled with heavy clouds and rain looked imminent.  We suited up and as soon as we stood up, the energy came rushing back to us.  Regardless of the day you’re having before, once the stilts are on, you pass over the threshold into a heightened world of energy and wonder!

The crowds began to gather and we had a wonderful time playing with the invited guests, dancing to the high school jazz band’s musical accompaniment, and roaming around the beautiful set up filling the space.

We were wrapped up by noon and said our goodbyes before returning to the car with our gear.  The second wind was now winding down and we drove back downtown where Mark dropped me off before heading back to Windsor for the Canada South Blues Museum induction.  I was the lucky one and got to spend the day resting, but Mark still had to make the four hour journey home and only had a few hours of turn around before being back on the Stilts at the Blues Museum.  Luckily, the energy held out and rest would come on Sunday…

9' Mounties with the Mayor of Memphis