Tuesday, October 7, 2008

East coast ass-whoopin'

Some times in this life as a touring musician you just have to get yer butt kicked. Get dragged through mud a bit. It is the true test, if at the end of the day, after being crapped on from above, you are still looking forward to the next show. I believe we passed the test with flying colours.

Needless to say, our eastern Canada tour did not exactly go as planned. Beginning about 10 - 12 days before we left, we were hit the first of what would be 3 cancellations. One due to a venue closing its doors ( which really sucks because The Mersey House is a really nice place), another due to a slacker employee who pretended to be the head honcho but wasn't even working there anymore when I called to double-confirm, and the third was due ( understandably) to Hurricane Kyle. It was an outdoor show.

And it was almost 4 shows canceled...

About 2 or 3 days before we left, I get a call from a bar manager from a venue that I won't name, saying that she was going to have to cancel us because we were too country-sounding. This gig was booked at least 3-4 months previous, and she waited until 3 days before the show to listen to our music on the MySpace page. So, I basically had to beg her to not cancel, and promised we would play all cover tunes ( rock music covers). So that gig was saved. But I was less than thrilled.

I mean, as much as I may like Neil Young or Jimi Hendrix or whoever it may be, I'm not really interested in driving halfway across the country to promote their music.

It turned out to be one of those gigs where the music in between sets is louder than the band. And the music isn't remotely near the style the band is playing. In this case, they kind of ran the gamut, from ACDC to bump and grind hip-hop type stuff. I think they played that 'Crazy Bitch' song you hear a lot these days.

So, the dance floor fills in between sets, and empties during sets. It's like they have to know every word to a song in order to find the rhythm. I always found that quite bizarre.

Anyway, the band rocked. So, screw 'em!

Bitch-fest over.

Tour highlights next post!

Cheers,
Tom

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