Underneath:Experience – Toronto, ON

October 12 – 16, 2024

Toronto wasn’t part of my original tour plans, but when a friend mentioned it was only one of three cities she could make around her work schedule, I looked into the details and realized I could add it to my list and cross off a new Canadian city and province while I was at it. I had driven around inside Ontario before, but never got out of the car, and by my own rules, that doesn’t count. This was also the only new-to-me place on Hanson’s tour, so I’m not sure why it wasn’t in my original plans to begin with.

the pre-show travel

All my friends got into Toronto before I even left Nashville, and they had already updated me that we had the weirdest hotel room set up I’ve ever seen – even more than that time I had a window-less room in New Orleans. Instead of looking outside, the window in our room opened up into the Rogers Center Baseball Stadium. It was funny at first, but eventually it was really throwing me off that there was no natural light, and we had to get creative with the curtain to block out the stadium lights at night. Two cancelled Ubers and one train ride later, I got in just in time for us to grab a late dinner at a nearby pub called The Loose Moose. We split an appetizer of what was essentially a chicken pot pie empanada, and that was the best part of the meal – the rest of the food was honestly just okay.

Sunday, the first show day, we went to a really fun Italian place called Piano Piano. They had a great lunch special – half an appetizer, a pizza or pasta, and a dessert, for only $36 CAD. Three of my friends and I each ordered a different appetizer and entree, so at the end of the meal I was able to try their fried calamari and artichoke hears, prosciutto, burrata, mushroom cavatelli, canestri alla vodka, pepperoni pizza with chili oil, and tiramisu. Every single bite of it was delicious, and if you ever find yourself in Toronto, I highly recommend you plan a meal there (and be sure to head downstairs for some fun photo ops if you do.)

Monday was Thanksgiving in Canada, and I was surprised that unlike in the U.S., most places were still open. We grabbed brunch at an Israeli diner called Cafe Landwer, which was delicious. One of my friends got a whole baguette as a side, and when she didn’t even touch it, she took it to go in a little baggie. We joked that it’d be funny if she snuck it into the venue and then pulled it out mid-show to start eating it. (Spoiler: This joke will be important later.) We spent the day wandering around downtown taking photos of the Toronto sign, Graffiti Alley, and Lake Ontario. Having grown up in Michigan, this was the last of the five Great Lakes that I hadn’t seen yet.

The shows

I didn’t write about the openers at all in my Minneapolis post. Shortly after Matthew Sweet had been announced as the opener for night one this tour, I had the chance to see his full-band show back home in Nashville. It was so much fun, and it had me looking forward to him opening on tour. However, to be completely honest, the stripped down trio version I saw in Minneapolis was disappointing in comparison. The songs were still great, but I like a little more hype when it comes to opening acts. But then we found out right before the Toronto show started that Matthew had come down with an illness and wouldn’t be able to finish the tour. Because it was so last minute, the night two opening act, Phantom Planet, threw together an acoustic set for night one. They said they’d mix it up for night two, but it was a very similar set both nights. They did a great job, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again at the rest of my night two shows, and in the meantime, I hope Matthew recovers well.

I hadn’t been paying much attention to the set lists since Minneapolis, so I was curious to see how different this show would be. Taylor and Zac swapped out their solos, and Toronto had a few extra singles thrown in toward the end. Since I didn’t do a deep-dive last time on specific songs yet for spoilers’ sake, consider this your spoiler warning going forward. Night one highlights for me were “Stories”, “Runaway Run”, “Teach Your Children”, “Julio/Cecelia”, “Dressed In Brown Eyes”, and “Been There Before”. Taylor teased a new solo cover but then chickened out and played “Save Me” instead. You may have seen the solo floating around on a set list on social media, but if not, let’s just say at this point I’ll consider myself lucky if I ever do get to hear it.

On night two, Zac came out carrying a little paper bag. From up in the balcony, I thought it looked like the bread bag my friend had from brunch, but figured it could have held some sort of drum sticks or other percussion instrument. However, mid-song, Zac pulled out a donut and started eating it. I really wished my friend had snuck in her bread, after all. Similar to night one, night two became a little more single-heavy than the Minneapolis show. The Minneapolis songs I loved that didn’t make the Toronto list were “World Goes Round” and “World’s On Fire” – hopefully they make a comeback at some point. Highlights of night two in Toronto for me were “Dancing In The Wind” (but c’mon Taylor, you need to bring back the electric guitar on this!), “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Breaktown”, “Feeling Alright”, “Love Somebody To Know”, “Crazy Beautiful”, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, and “Lost Without Each Other”. I’m realizing in real-time that between the two nights, there’s almost a whole complete set list of songs that were highlights for me, and that’s just the sign of a great tour.

post-show travel

The biggest sell for me adding Toronto to my tour list, besides being a new city, was the chance to visit Niagra Falls while I was in the area, as I had never been there either. My friend and I took the train from Toronto to Niagra Falls, NY, and stayed the night on the U.S. side. I had been told by multiple people that the U.S. side city was dumpy, but the nature around it was better with a giant state park, while the Canadian side was a giant tourist trap, but better views of the falls. Turns out that was a very accurate statement. But staying over on the U.S. side was incredibly easy.

After getting off the train, we had about a 5 minute Uber ride to our hotel, where we crashed and napped for several hours. By late afternoon, we were up and ready to hop into another 5-minute Uber over to the State Park. If I could change one thing about our plans, it would have been to spend more time walking around the actual park, but we really needed those naps. From the park, as long as you have your passport, you can walk across Rainbow Bridge over the falls and head over to the Canadian side. We planned the trip so that we’d get some good golden hour photos on our way back to Canada, dinner over in Canada, and then some pictures of the falls lit up at night on our way back.

The one thing we didn’t plan well: you have to have $1 in coins to go back to the U.S. I had one USD quarter, and my friend had $6 USD in bills. The only way we could make change was buying something, but the poor gift shop clerk was so confused by what we were asking. We ended up giving her $6 USD for one snack-sized bag of ketchup chips that cost $4.89 USD, and because of the conversion rate, she gave us a $2 CAD coin back… which was our plan, but we needed individual $1 CAD coins instead… so then we headed over to Starbucks and the barista traded out our coins from the tip jar.

Our only real plan for Wednesday was to hit up the Maid of the Mist. I expected it to be a pretty hokey experience, but figured it was something I needed to do anyway. I’m happy to report it was the farthest thing from hokey, and such a breathtaking experience. We were first in line for the boat, and the man working the line suggest we stand on the bottom level, front of the boat. I’m glad he told us that, because I would have expected the top to be better. Getting so close to the falls was incredible; the perspective really shows how huge – not just tall, but how wide – the falls really are. I was so afraid of the wind blowing my phone out of my hand, but I managed to grab some good pictures of the falls, and plenty of outtakes as well. Here’s my pro-tip: while it was cold on this particular day, if you can go in the off-season, I highly recommend it. There were only about 100 people on our boat compared to the usual 600, and I cannot imagine enjoying the experience with that many more people packed into such a small boat.

After the falls, we went on down to Buffalo. We didn’t have any sort of real plan for visiting Buffalo as we were mainly there for the airport. We start looking into some suggestions from Reddit, and I cannot make this up:

• Silo City – closed for the season
• AKG Art Museum – closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays
• Lake Eerie Sunset Cruise – Saturdays only
• The Pink Bar – burned down in July
• Genessee Publi House – closed for a private event

The one thing we knew we wanted to do was try some wings. While Anchor Bar claims to be the original, many locals seem to favor Bar-Bills. So, we decided why not try both? Bar-Bills was closest to our hotel, so we tried that first. We did half classic medium, half cajun honey butter BBQ, and we split another local delicacy called the beef on weck. The beef on weck was so good. The wings were great too, though we both preferred the cajun honey butter BBQ over the basic buffalo. Later in the day for dinner, we went over to Anchor Bar and did half classic medium again, and half spicy garlic parmesan, and also split some pizza logs. The pizza logs were incredible and I need to know why they aren’t all over the country. Our unprofessional opinion is that Anchor Bar had better actual chicken (thicker, meatier, juicier) and a better classic buffalo sauce, while Bar-Bills had the better “fun” sauce.

Between wing tastings, we went up to the observation deck at the top of City Hall and got to take in the views of the city. Lake Eerie was gorgeous, and I was shocked to see the mist from the falls rising as high above the horizon as the fake little CN tower over in Canada, despite being 20 miles away. After City Hall, we stopped at a couple murals for photo ops, and that was the extent of available things to do in Buffalo. For all you Hanson fans out there, my best description of the city is that it’s just a much bigger Tulsa; cool architecture, good food, not much to do.

To add to our list of Buffalo mis-haps: we tried to go to one last mural between Anchor Bar and our hotel, but our Uber Driver skipped over it without saying anything, and by the time we noticed, we were too far away to care and bother saying anything. And then this morning, we went down to our hotel lobby to request a shuttle to the airport. We were told he was on a run and would be right back. The airport was literally right across the street from the hotel, so we expected a 5-10 minute way. Finally after 20 minutes, the guy working the front desk came over and very bluntly told us “he’s on his way, he’s old, he forgot.”

Whether you’re traveling to see your favorite band, natural wonders, to try local cuisines, or all of the above, you always have to be flexible, expect the unexpected and the weird. No matter what trip I’m on, I’ve found I’m constantly telling myself “this can’t be real” – in regards to waterfalls, forgetful shuttle drivers, and even having venue security tell me I can’t flush the toilet the same time as someone else. It’s not made for the weak, but this kind of life is all I know.