| July 7, Oshawa, ON |
| GRAYLINE TOUR STORIES |
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| As my eyes began to open I noticed glowing stars on the wall and ceiling. It's pitch black and my body was crammed vertically (really? you sure it wasn't horizontal? -Pete) in a tiny childrens' bed and for a brief moment I had no idea where the fuck I was. I heard Pete get up and he flicks the light on. BAM! Britany Spears right over the bed!! I started to feel the blood rush to my midsection, but this was neither the time nor the place. I remembered that we were at Chris Mafuckinchete's apartment in Port Perry. We had driven up here with him after last night's show in Toronto. I also remembered we saw another accident on the way here. That would make number three, and it was a bad one. We got our stuff in order and walked over to the living room where we saw Randy and Darren on the pullout couch, both with their arms tucked into their t-shirts as to keep warm. I quickly remembered the day before when they both said that they wouldn't need a blanket. Ha!! Once we were all up we headed for the local greasy spoon for breakfast. As it would turn out, this would be a morning ritual for us. Go to some local shithole to eat and have all the inbred locals stare at us, waitresses glare at us and probably have the cooks spit in our food. After we ate(?!!), we sold our first CD to a couple of star struck onlookers who were observing us, er... Pete, reorganize the van. We got back to Chris' place and ah yes... showers. One of my many nightmares about this tour was that I thought we would maybe get to shower only once or twice in the 16 days we were gone. If you haven't guessed by now, I am the paranoid one in the band. I would have these thoughts of the four of us walking around and being surrounded by a cloud of dirt, like PigPen from Charlie Brown. Luckily we all had showers this second day and actually, we showered quite a bit on this tour considering the circumstances. During Pete's shower he took this huge spill as he tried to grab onto the curtain to break the fall, but it tumbled down with him. The funny thing is that none of us heard the crash and Pete didn't tell us about it until a few days afterward. Poor old guy is having trouble keeping his balance in his old age. You see Pete is our Adolf, the fearless tyrannical leader. As a drummer, he rocks!! After one of our shows in Hamilton, Gordie Lewis from Teenage Head remarked to Larry from AMP that he was totally impressed with Pete's speed and intensity, and was just waiting for him to let up or lose steam. Of course it never happened. Pete just doesn't allow for mistakes, his or ours. He also handles all of the business and promotion relating to the band and is basically single handedly responsible for the tour and website. When I first met Pete, I was in another band and lets just say that I was scared of him and thought he was an asshole. Now, he is a close friend. He is one of the few people in the world that will be completely honest with you, all the time, to your face. I won't get into his warped and sick sense of humour or his stong hatred of condiments... The nights show in Oshawa was an early one so we headed to the bar in the afternoon. Tonight, The Dungeon would have the pleasure of hosting Grayline. The bar looked awesome inside with a huge stage and lots of room for people to rock out. This day was also the bar owner Jim's birthday. The Machete boys introduced us to him and wow did this guy like to bitch and complain. He reminded me of a really crabby Fat Bastard from Austin Powers. He told us we had until 11:00 and then it was dance night. We later found out that dance night meant Gothamania! Since it was Jim's birthday, the Dungeon kitchen wasn't open so Randy and I went for some Pizza and check out a little of the town. When we were getting back I saw Pete outside and noticed a huge smile on his face. "Why so smiley there jackass?" I asked. "Uh... Just go down and see for yourself," he replied with his classic shit eating grin. Uh-oh, either it was good, or something really fucked up had happened. As I walked down into the bar I wasn't sure what to expect. A quick look around and... WANGO! Call my folks and tell them their son is a Rock Star!!! The stage was of KISS magnitude with four full amplifier stacks lining the back of the stage. It looked totally rock and fucking roll!!. I could feel that Grayline was going to leave an impression on this place. This stage had given us an energy for the night and I started to feel stardom on the rise. We waited with anticipation for the droves of Rock seeking youth to tear down the doors of The Dungeon. We waited...and waited...............and waited. The turnout was disappointing. Not to say that the place was empty, but it was a far cry from the 250 that the other bands were guessing would show up. After all, we had 3 local bands on a Saturday night. The show began regardless. The opening band mentioned that they were playing a house party later that night which is where they said a lot of the regular show goers would be. We asked if we could play and they told us they would try to get us on the show. After they played, (a boring generic "punk" set) they left the bar and we never heard from them again. Mr Machete was next. Stanzig, the bands friend had set up a bar on the stage and was dressed like a bar tender. He was serving up Martini's to the crowd while Machete played their set. I really enjoyed them again this night but they were lacking the energy they had displayed on Friday. It was because of the turnout. We were on next and couldn't care less how many were there. We fucking rocked hard. We all gave our sweat that night as we were drenched in it after our set. I could actually ring out sweat from my shirt!! During the break in between us and One Down, this really annoying guy was shooting his mouth off at us. He kept making mom jokes at me and I really felt like breaking my guitar across the side of his ugly, acne infested face. He was also bothering the rest of our band. He seemed to be buddies with One Down so he escaped with his life that night. I was hoping he would piss off Pete because there would have been no remorse shown to this loser and he would have probably ripped this guys throat out. My thoughts quickly drifted to Pete just wasting this guy in the band room as the rest of us cheered him on. I snapped out of it quickly and went out to watch One Down. They played a great set and were a really tight band. Overall, Oshawa missed a great show that night. But the night was still young. As we were winding down and packing up, people started to file in for Goth Night. We were actually making some friends here. We started taking some pictures when Dave Machete's girlfriend Heather came onto the scene. She was taking my picture and as a joke I started unbuttoning my pants. She quickly told me to remove them completely. I refused, so she asked if any of us would be willing to pose nude for her. "I WILL!!" Pete said without hesitation. The two went off into the mens washroom and came out a few minutes later. She was very happy with the pics. As it turns out, Pete not only gave her the full monty but he was also sporting wood!! The two had formed an everlasting friendship. A whole group of us, including Mr. Machete, their friends and some of the people we met from Goth Night then headed outside. As we were saying our goodbyes and taking more pictures, two girls started yelling at us from across the street. "Show us your Tits!!" Darren yelled back. They did! Darren and Dave ran across the street to both take some snapshots of this beautiful moment. Well the night was now officially a success. It was sad to part from the Machete boys, but tomorrow was a long drive into uncertainty. We headed off into the night and made our way up the 401 highway. After a couple of hours we pulled into a service centre to stop for the night and took our sleeping spots in the Van. "Goodnight Pete, goodnight Randy, goodnight Darren" I said blissfully. They responded as follows: Pete, "Shut up Petro Points, and if I hear another peep out of you I'll throtle ya!" Randy, "Just keep your hands in your sleeping bag and stay off of my side of the bunk!" And Darren just farted to reply. What a great bunch of guys and what a fun night. |
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| I hope you are enjoying these tour stories pages. It's taken a while to get this site together and we just noticed that people are actually coming here through search engines so we're gonna get it finished quick as it is quite rough or not completed in spots. We hope these are as somewhat interesting to read and hopefully it'll give you a better insight into this beast we call Grayline. Pete |
| Saturday July 7, 2001 Oshawa, Ontario |