Fanshawe picked as free venue for Mobile concert. It all goes down on September 24 north of the greenhouse

“It's the perfect time for us to start playing and touring again,” Mat Joly said excitedly over the phone. Joly is the lead singer of Canadian rock band Mobile, and after a year of recording, he and the guys are ready to hit the road.

And that's exactly what they're doing, starting with a tour of six campuses across Canada. Sponsored by Rogers Musicstore and MTV Canada's “The Leak,” Mobile will embark on the journey next Monday and by September 24, they'll be at Fanshawe College and it's entirely free for music goers.

Fanshawe was chosen as the only Ontario post-secondary stop for the Rogers MusicStore Presents MTV's The Leak Live tour and joins Dalhousie University, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, University of British Columbia and Champlain College. Rumour has it that one MTV personality will also be on hand to present the show.

Mobile are no strangers to Fanshawe, and anyone that attended last year's Frosh concert will know that, but this time around they'll be playing a whole new set of songs. Their sophomore album, Tales From the City, is set to be released in October, and the band are eager to audition the new material, like their current single, “The Killer”, which hit the airwaves in July.

Joly describes their new material as a little more cohesive than their 2006 debut, Tomorrow Starts Today.

“Tomorrow Starts Today was more like a collection of songs that we wrote through the years... but with Tales, wanted to write a different kind of record,” he explained. “We didn't want to rewrite the first album.”

And while the band has still revisited old ideas for Tales From the City, many of their personal experiences from the last two years have gone into the music, both melodically and lyrically.

“We've been through a lot as a band, and you know, personal struggles too,” Joly told me, “I lost a lot of members of my family, so it made me realize a lot of things in life, and I got to write about things that I couldn't really do before.”

Christian Brais, or Criq for short who plays guitar for the band, was also emotionally burdened by his mother's diagnosis of breast cancer. She has since made a full recovery, but the ordeal left a permanent mark on him.

These events turned into songs, with the melodies written by Brais, lyrics by Joly. But while Mobile had years to amass material for their first album, composing the same amount in a fraction of the time was a creative challenge.

And to make matters worse, Mobile had been touring heavily behind Tomorrow Starts Today, so finding time to sit down and write was nearly impossible.

“It was a matter of time before we started clicking again,” said Joly, about the initial struggle.

But where problems occurred in the writing process, solutions were found just as quickly, with the help of producer Jeff Saltzman. Saltzman's most notable work, The Killers' Hot Fuss album, was nominated for five Grammy Awards.

A different producer was a big step for the band.

“Christian and I went to New York City for a couple of weeks to see how [we and Jeff] would work together, because you never know how it's going to turn out with a producer,” said Joly. “The rest of the guys joined us later. [...] Jeff is a really cool guy, and really easy to work with, and I think he was the perfect guy for this record.”

Whether the magic Saltzman worked on Hot Fuss will transfer over to Tales From the City, only time will tell, but in the mean time, the guys in Mobile are just happy to be sharing the new songs with their fans.

Rogers MusicStore Presents MTV's The Leak Live tour will roll into Fanshawe on Wednesday, September 24 with an entirely selfcontained stage. The entire production will be set up in Parking Lot 8, north of the college greenhouse and starts up at 7 pm. There will be Rogers reps at the college from 11 am - 1 pm Thursday, September 18 until the show.