Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Friday July 11, 2025 - Tillsonburg, ON

Road Blog
July 11, 2025
Tillsonburg, Ontario

The drive from Windsor to our AirBB just southeast of Tillsonburg was fairly painless, getting off the 401 and onto county roads through endless corn fields after about an hour. We were greeted in the driveway by a herd of goats and our Dutch married couple hosts who were VERY Dutch and about as sweet as can be, warning us not to use the microwave and toaster oven at the same time lest we’d kill the power. After a half hour trying to decipher her terrible handwriting we decoded the Wi-Fi password had a short downtime window to catch up with the world.

We headed into town in time to get some dinner at The Mill and see our pals Jon Snodgrass and Chad Price play in Drag The River. I saw the organizer Ben and the owner Mandy right off with big hugs and thanks so much for having me. As I inhaled my amazing turkey club and Mill IPA Greg Norton (Hüsker Dü/ All things UltraBomb!) came over to the table for a quick chat, then owner Patrick stopped by to say hello. These are the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

Downstairs in Paddy’s Underground it was packed to the gills and about 100°F and sticky as hell down there, but gloriously awesome, kinda like seeing ALL and Doughboys at Blondie's in Detroit in August of `88, just a significantly nicer setting. DTR went on as a duo and played an awesome set to kick off the festival. I said hello to pal Trevor, Detroit pals Michael, and Rebekah and Vancouver bud Brock ( SLIP~ons/Doughboys) then headed outside to catch the next band.

The next couple hours are a bit of a blur, seeing friends, meeting new ones, watching bands, drinking beers. Did some major bonding with SLIP~ons guitarist Rob over the first two Motley Crue and Cinderella albums and the genius of Jake E. Lee.

Then it was time to get to work. I grabbed my Reverend Guitars PA1 and headed back downstairs into Paddy’s and strategized the Hüsker Dü setlist with Snodgrass. At 7:45 Jon, Greg and Rad Owl drummer David took the stage to the packed room and went into “Do You Remember” then “Celebrated Summer.” A couple songs in I strapped on the guitar and Greg kicked off the bass chords into “It’s Not Funny Anymore,” then into “Flip Your Wig” next, which I sang. Various people came up and down to play guitar and sing, too many to mention, and Brock played drums and sang “Green Eyes,” which was great. I did, I dunno, 6-8 tunes, 3 of which I’d practiced a little based on the early plans, the rest I didn't, and didn’t F `em up too bad except a chord here or there. Not gonna get all mushy on ya, Princess, but it was a big fuckin’ deal for me to be up there. Ex-Ultrabomb singer/guitarist Finny McConnell made a surprise appearance on closers “Makes No Sense at All” and “New Day Rising” and it was cool to see him and Greg play again.

After toweling off and texting every person I’ve ever met in my entire life and some I haven't yet about what had just gone down we headed back down to the main stage and hung with The Flatliners guys and watched Dillinger Four play. Adam Wild Honey Collective pretty much knows everyone from his touring days with a previous band so he’s no stranger to this group either. There’s no whiskey out there so we wrapped up The Mill portion of the night back at Paddy’s and caught a GREAT set by christy.hunt before heading into town and checking out a couple killer punk bands at the Copper Top – JSM from Calgary and The (untaggable) McBains from right here in Tillsonburg, with pal Trevor on guitar. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a punk show like this. It was amazing.

Adam was DD and got us safely back to the goat farm in a downpour where we chatted over a nightcap and crashed out after 2am. What a day. So many people I didn’t even mention. See y’all in a few hours for day 2. Adam I play tonight at 7:30, in Paddy’s, right when ALL ( Scott set ) finishes, and I know you ain’t missing that, so please get your asses down there quickly. I’m going on about 14 total hours of sleep over the last 4 days so doing good over here. xx