The last leg! This is a bit short, really; I think I must have been suffering from 'need-lag' by this point on the tour, and my notes became a little bit thin (which I most certainly didn't...!).
Thursday 10 November (Day off, Toronto, ON)
I like big things.
Pecks went
to the gym. Sully took me up the CN
Tower (ooh err). It was amazing. Atherton checked out the nearby Steam Whistle
brewery. We met up with Pecks and went
looking for poutine, which we found in the form of Smoke’s on Queen
Street. Hair metal on the radio, carbs
in the cardboard. Beautiful.
Carpet of city.
We checked
out Steve’s music store, which had been very kind and helpful to Sully on a
previous trip when he had a mid-tour effects-pedal malfunction. I found a nice Tele which I briefly
considered buying, but thought better of it.
Here marks
a gap when we went out with Siavash (!).
There was some beer. There was an
open-mic rap session. There was some
beer!
Friday 11 November (Mod Club, Toronto, ON)
I woke up
to the news that Leonard Cohen had passed away.
Everyone but me slept in, so I had a quiet pot of coffee to myself in
the kitchen overlooking the beautiful garden with its carpet of
red-brown-yellow leaf. Sully was the first to surface, and promptly went
out for a wander. I stayed behind trying
to operate the Nespresso machine, with limited success and a lot of mess.
I gave up in the end, and went back to bed! After a very slow morning/early afternoon
while everyone gathered themselves together, it was time to head to the venue.
Wankpuffin: (n) Donald Trump. See also 'Hoof-wanking bungle-c***'.
It was
cold! After having spent most of our
time on this continent basking in 25-30 degree heat in Los Angeles, the 0-5
degrees of Toronto was rather refreshing, although no-one wanted to stay
outside too long. We loaded the gear in
to the Mod Club and set up for one of the easiest sound-checks of the
tour. Once set up I found my way to the
bogs and started humming ‘Marble Zone’ from Sonic The Hedgehog to myself – it’s
always slightly unnerving when you hear someone humming along with you in the
gents! Thankfully it was only Sully. Atherton and I went over the road for a cup of
coffee and a sarnie, returning to find ALL THE PIZZA IN THE WORLD had been
delivered. Nice!
Rhythm
& Vibes opened the show, and were on top form. It was really lovely to see all these guys
again; I’d met them for the first time in Calgary earlier in the year, and had
fond memories of their show and their company.
They got the crowd going in their own inimitable fashion, and then it
was our turn. The show was a really
enjoyable one, with a couple of really special moments. An old Radio Tehran song, ‘Eshtebah’, sticks
in my head from this night. Its quite Floyd-y in a way; I get to play some
pretty easy yet atmospheric organ chords, accompanying some quite impassioned
vocals from Ali and some lovely slide guitar work from Pecks. On nights like
this one, when the band is on fire, when the atmosphere in the crowd is
electric and the lights are right, its like a warm hug.
We had
also decided to do the obvious tribute to Mr. Cohen at the start of the second
set, and I got to sing the first verse – the crowd singing every word along
with me. I was reduced to a sobbing
wreck after that and had to leave the stage briefly to recover myself (despite
Sully’s hilarious but perhaps inappropriate altered lyric – “She tied you to her kitchen chair, she
slapped you ‘round, she touched you…there…”). Also during the second half, a young man
brought his young lady-friend onstage to propose during the middle of ‘Wedding
Song’, appropriately enough. Thankfully,
she said yes. We didn’t have any
suitable music prepared for the eventuality that she said no!
After packing down,
lovely Aiden and Sara drove me back to base with all the gear, and then we all
headed for Siavash’s apartment where the party was already in swing. “Lots of love in the room”, says my personal
diary. I think I hit the bottle rather
hard; I don’t remember much except that Sully and I got a cab back, which we
had to go on a bit of a mission to find!
'This is a very boring painting' *
Saturday
12 November (Toronto, ON – Venue, Vancouver,
BC)
Our host,
the splendid Mohamed, woke us all up (bless him) on time for us to get ready to
leave for YYZ. We got to the airport in
plenty of time, but it was all for nothing; somehow, despite confirming the
booking via email and taking his money, Air Canada had no record of Ali buying
our ‘plane tickets. It took a lot of
time and queuing to figure this out, and the nice girl behind the final desk
seemed more interested in explaining what had gone wrong - in great detail -
rather than making any visible attempt to put things right. Luckily, there were just enough seats left on
the flight, and we were fast-tracked through security. Ali and Mohamed had stopped off for sandwiches
for us en route which were distributed once in our seats (hero!), and I settled
in to watch ‘Finding Dory‘ and have a good cry (Altitude Adjusted Lachrymosity
Syndrome).
Welcome to Vancouver. F***ing terrifying!
"The
ride into Vancouver is going to be choppy...", announced the flight
deck. Shortly followed by "We're
going to be landing sooner than we thought..." !! Not particularly reassuring, but after a
turbulent descent we landed safely. We
piled into a cab and headed for the last hotel of the tour (passing ‘Big Rich's
Adult Video Store’ en route…). The hotel
was a fair way out of town, so we didn’t have long there before we had to turn
back and go to the venue. I had spied
this venue in a Devin Townsend Project video tour diary, across the street from
the Vogue Theatre where they were playing back in October. The guys in the venue looked after us and the
sound check was over relatively quickly.
Off to Tim Hortons for a coffee and a sandwich before going straight
back to the venue.
The last
gig of the tour, and it was an absolute belter.
We had been a bit worried about the curfew (which we were actually told
about in advance, for once!), but we timed it perfectly. The first set was terrific, and we opened the
second set with ‘Hallelujah’ again; the sound man wasn’t quite ready for me and
Atherton to come out and start, the house music was going for a good 5 minutes
with me stood on stage like a lemon waiting to start and gently waving at the
back of the room! Still, never
mind. Another appreciative crowd,
another sold-out show. Hooray!
The after-show /
after-tour party began at Earls Test Kitchen.
My notes say “Wasabi minesweeper!” – I can only assume that somebody had
something to eat which included some rather surprising heat! I enjoyed a rather splendid array of white
wine before calling it a night around 1am and taking all the gear back to the
hotel. I had done rather too much
drinking and not sleeping over this trip; the other boys had sensibly taken
days off, but not me. A lesson learned,
but a lesson destined to be ignored I fear.
Atherton rocked in at 4am!
"There must be some mistake; I ordered the LARGE carafe?"
"This is the end...."
"Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.........."
".........eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!"
Sunday 13 November 2016 (Vancouver, BC – Calgary, ON)
This was the hardest
morning. Definitely. When I had arrived at the hotel in the small
hours, I had asked reception to book a taxi to take us to the airport at around
10am. Just before 9am, the ‘phone in the
room woke me up to tell me that they had only just booked it. I went back to bed. Then the ‘phone rang again. “PISS OFF!!!”, yelled I. But it was only Ali, inviting me down for
breakfast with him, which was very nice!
We enjoyed some lukewarm toast and cereal in paper bowls (definitely the
least luxurious breakfast of the tour, unless you count Jack In The Slag),
before meeting the boys outside. Poor
Pecks looked worryingly ill (“It feels like my face is falling off”), which is
only to be expected – apparently he’d dropped the equivalent of £50 on
McDonalds whilst pissed off his face at silly o’clock in the morning! Bless him.
We said our goodbyes to Ali, who was coming home a bit later, and
started the long journey home.
The rest was airports,
aeroplanes, and cars! Oh, and that nifty
little tram thing they wheel you around in at Calgary International – that was
cool!!!
All that,
and I only lost a sock and a ‘phone charger!
I’ve got absolutely no
idea how to sign this off, except to say that the two-and-a-half weeks I spent
on this tour, and the time I’ve spent with the band on various European jaunts
during 2016, count as some of the finest times of my life as a jobbing
muso. I had SUCH a good time, playing to
some fabulously warm and generous audiences with some fabulously warm and generous
friends on-stage with me. We got through
it all without any major falling out, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it all
again.
To Ali – thanks for
having me along for the ride, brother. You and the boys have built something very
special here, and I feel honoured every time I get asked along to play. Hoping that this means love…
عشق
To Sully – thanks for
talking me down off a bad mood in L.A., for making wonderful music, and for
being our guide through it. Washing Bot
loves you forever.
To Atherton – thanks for
being my most regular and loving room-mate, for not throttling me for snoring
too vivaciously, and for being the dirty, hairy, skinny beast that you
are. Don’t you go changing.
To Pecks – thanks for
welcoming an (almost) complete stranger into the firm, for making me feel a
part of each and every show, and for the sick f***ing guitar jams (almost)
every night! NEEEEEED!!!!
To absolutely everyone we
met along the way – you were perfect, and you won’t be forgotten in a hurry.
Chris “a
pint of bourbon, please” Harrison
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