I woke up extremely early this Friday the 13th, staring into the eyes of... well... a gerbil. That's right, a gerbil. It was 6 o'clock in the morning and my eyes opened to see a gerbil running around on his little wheel. I probably got some more sleep from 6 till 8:30 but not that much, this gerbil must have been training for the Hammy Hamster invitational at the rate he was going. Well we were all up and after a huge breakfast in town it was time to hit the road for Bathurst. For some reason we never pronounced it properly but decided to use our French Canadian accents and say "Bahterst". This would be another long day on the road but I think we were getting used to all of the travel. The good thing was that we had clean clothes to wear which made a slight difference in the way the van smelled.
We drove into Bathurst and the first stop would be the skate shop which was basically right on the road into downtown. There were a few kids in the shop and it turned out that they had their tickets to the show and were quite excited to see us. A few of them actually bought their CD's right then and there so they could listen to it before the show. The sad yet customary occurence was the kids we spoke with were carrying ticket numbers 5 and 6. Well our new fans let us know the way to the Curling Club and were on our way to set up. We pulled the van right into the joint and started unloading. We met Marcy and Mark who were the two that were putting on the show. I have to say that they were working hard getting the place together. Marcy did express some concern because they hadn't sold many tickets and they needed something like 90 kids to break even. They remained confident as they had put on a few shows here and they had been successful, including a show with Propagandhi. A full sound crew came in (which was the biggest cost) to set up the PA. It was really funny because one of the guys kept talking to us about all the music he liked and bands he had done sound for. His claim to fame... a Guns'n'Roses tribute band. He was quick to point out he also had done sound for Bon Jovi cover bands, Iron Maiden and AC/DC cover bands. Hell, if you can't brag about doing sound for the actual band, you might as well take pride in doing it for the cover band, I guess. The good thing that came out of the conversation was that Great Scott, an AC/DC cover band was performing that night at a bar in town. We decided that after we rocked the Curling Club, we would head over and check them out.
The sound checks were pretty sketchy to say the least. All of our stuff was set up and off to the side of the stage and Pete had set up our very impressive merchandise table, we even have a banner for it. The only thing left to do was sit and wait for people to hopefully start showing up. As it was still early, Darren and I headed down to Subway to grab some dinner. We got in line to order and were just goofing around when the corner of my eye caught an interesting sight. I nudged Darren to look outside so he could make his own observation. There she was, she must have been almost 6 feet tall in her high heeled leather boots. She was wearing the skin tight black sexy pants and a super tight low cut top to reveal her superior top end genetics. She had really long flowing blonde curly hair which was blocking her face from the angle we were gaucking at. I could see Darren's smile grow as mine did as we waited with anticipation for her to walk though the doors so we could get a better look at her... and then... WANGO! HOLY GEEZE. Darren and I looked at each other and could not conceal our giggling. I am not trying to be mean, and I know that I'm nothing to write home about looks wise myself, but as Darren put it "She looks like she's been kicked in the face by a horse". There were no facial deformities just an awful smile with make up that would make Tammy Fay Baker jealous. We both shook off the cobwebs and trying to erase the dirty thoughts we were probably both having in our heads before we had a chance to see her face. Darren kept doing an impression of her that had me laughing way too loud for the Subway. With this note we decided to get our food to go. It was Friday the 13th and the night was just starting to get interesting.
We had come to the conclusion that the turn out was not going to be all that great. There seemed to be 50-60 people there but judging by the look on Marcy's face, it would not be enough to pay her expenses. We felt terrible and tried to recruit kids from outside to call their friends and tell them to come out and check out the show. The first few bands were not bad and the small crowd were all up front moshing their little heads off. It was good to see energy in a crowd allbeit a small one. The older you get, the cooler you seem to become so we play to a lot of people just standing around trying to look good. These kids knew how to have fun though. It seemed like every band had someone break a string and slow down the pace of the evening. Randy leaned over to me and said that he was sure that he too would break a string to keep the streak alive for the evening.
Grayline time had arrived again and we were ready to rock the Curling Club. All the kids were up front and rocking out to us. It was really cool. I hadn't seen a stage dive in a long time before this evening but it broke the streak. There were kids surfing the crowd constantly. A few songs in, and SNAP! I had broken a string. This was the first string I had broken in years and I'd never had one go live. I quickly switched to the back up guitar but when I got back on stage there was someone in front of my microphone. There she stood... a middle aged blonde lady wearing a long blue skirt, a frilly white top, a party hat and she was carrying a noise maker. For a while she was just mumbling in front of the microphone so I slowly tried edging her away from it. She proceeded to dance around the stage and the next thing I know she's giving Randy spankings!! WHAT THE HELL! She basically stayed up on stage and danced around for our whole set. It was fine by me since it would be great on video and my back up guitar was causing me grief on stage. I told my signiture Kiss story but altered it so that it was this lady who had seen them play there 30 years ago. To make a long story short, I said that she asked Gene Simmons to well, use his Bat Wing on her in a sexual manner! YES!! The crowd got a kick out of it but Pete was having a fit behind the drums.
Once our set was done and the show had ended this lady was sticking around while we were tearing down. Marcy informed us that she was known as a bit of an alcoholic street lady. Next thing I know, Darren's got the camera and this lady is actually stripping for him. This was totally bizarre. Everyone who was helping clean up had all stopped what they were doing and were watching the spectacle. There were boos and hisses, ooohhhhss and NNNNNOOOOOOOOO's, it was truly a fucked up event. Luckily for everyone involved it ended before things got too graphic and I think all of us present were feeling a little dirty and queezey at this time.
We were all packed up and ready to hit the AC/DC bar when Marcy and Marc informed us that they had gotten us a hotel room and they were going to pay us. Pete insisted that they cancel the room and not worry about it. They had already lost money and the last thing we wanted to do was be another expense. They fought back and forth with us and Marcy basically told Pete that we had to stay at the Hotel and let them do this because she sticks to her word, and there were no if's, and's, or but's about it. We had no choice but to accept. We thanked them a bunch for the show and headed off to catch the end of Great Scott.
We got to the bar and after we all payed the $8 cover we were in. The place was totally packed, probably 500 people there. This was obviously the place to be in Bathurst, lots of nice looking ladys and drunk men trying to pick them up. As I was just thinking that it seemed a bit redneck in there I looked down to see that I was still wearing my leather pants and Randy was still wearing his tight black sparkley pants with flames on the bottom. I thougth we'd get our asses kicked for sure but all was good. Darren and Randy started into the beer and probably drank 3 pitchers between the two of them in about an hour. Yep, they were getting drunk. We all went up to the front but after Pete farted a few times, we all sort of dispersed around. Darren and I sitting at a booth beside a bunch of girls and Darren tried to get their attention. I nearly pissed myself laughing! Just picture Darren doing little dance moves with his snarky grin on his face while these girls just rolled their eyes. The vocalist sounded dead-on but I wasn't too impressed with the Angus of the band. They were quite entertaining and I didn't mind the $8 even though we only caught the last bit of the show. The band ended and when we went out to the parking lot, Marcy and Mark were there to meet us. They were getting worried because it was late and we hadn't checked into the hotel yet.
Once we checked in, Pete headed to the van for security purposes after he showered. I showered next and went right to bed in one of the 2 double beds. Our drunken counterparts, Randy and Darren went off in the hotel to make some friends. I figured I would go right to sleep since I knew they would wake me up in a couple of hours.
"HAHAHAHAHA!! TEEHEEEHEEHEEHEE!! Jump on the bed Randy!" Darren blurted out as Randy was jumping on my bed, naked from the waste down. I just pulled the covers over my head and told them to FUCK-OFF!! As I predicted they came in 2 hours later, pissed drunk and oddly enough neither of them were wearing any pants. They left me alone after that but I could hear them both in the bathroom taking pictures of each other! Next thing I hear is Randy hurling his guts out while Darren is laughing his ass off!! Darren then fell into the bathtub and Randy was puking in the toilet!! They both started to calm down quite quickly as the room was starting to spin for each of them. They were nice enough to let me sleep in my own bed as they shared the one next to me.
The night was over and we were actually put up in a hotel as part of our payment. A crazy drunk lady was the fifth member of the band that night and she did a striptease for our home video. I was the one who broke a string and Darren and Randy got wasted and ran naked around a hotel. It must have been Friday the 13th. |
