The opening act – a country fried folk singer – thanks the audience, sells himself at the door and relinquishes the stage to the main attraction. A small town band on the rise under the tutelage of such recent past and present Canadian masters as The Hip, The Trews, Sam Roberts, Matt Good, The Arkells, and Big Sugar’s Gordie Johnson, they have a devoted following in their hometown. Drummer “Winchester” Street gets caught on his way through the crowd by a fan seeking an autograph and a conversation with the someday famous. He looks obviously anxious (ever the shy one) as lead singer and guitarist James McKenty puts a foot on the dais and looks back to see he’s there alone. “Chachi” hangs in the back chugging his Labatt 50. James steps down and stands beside me, glaring at the drunken chick chatting up Winchester. I hide a smirk and chuckle from him behind my tumbler of whiskey and Coke. They’ve done this every Friday night in a hundred different bars.
Winchester gives a smile and slides away, climbing over the equipment to take his place at the drums. James straps on his Gibson blues guitar. Chachi ambles through the crowd and picks up his bass.
James starts it off with the echoing riff from the new single, The Revenge of Johnny Laundry. Hit them hard and fast at the start and they’ve love the rest. But this is the hometown crowd and he’s preaching to the converted.
Winchester has picked up some new skills since I saw them last. His stringy hair flies as he puts the beats down, feeling the rhythm deep inside. He has his shirtsleeves rolled up showing off his drummers’ biceps and his omnipresent tie and vest fit in with the band’s semi-formal style. His smile shows off a chipped front tooth, having traded in his hockey stick for drumsticks.
A few of the classics. A few of the new. Sometimes the intro is so long it’s a song in itself.
The place shakes with the movement of 49 tons of diesel locomotive crashing through the walls. Eleanor Rigby could wake the dead.
Chachi looks like he’s having an aneurism as he grinds the wires. Winchester’s arms vibrate as his bandmates challenge his skills of barrel rolling. Two hundred barrels!
Chachi has apparently added a keyboard to his repertoire of instruments. Maybe he always had it and I just never noticed. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him play the mandolin, banjo and an accordion in previous shows. He’s one of those guys that you just know was meant to be famous.
James is a show unto himself in a dark grey suit and t-shirt and blue and grey fedora. A distant stare is fixed in his eyes, staring off into some unknown abyss of muses and musical notes. Sweat and spittle fly as he kisses the microphone, hands cupping the cheeks of his lover. He uses his bottle of beer as a slide. I’ve seen the man play one handed and drink his beer with the other. Does the chicken neck. Does the blind man shuffle and the side step slide.
“I smoke the Putter’s Light. Saves me a little money.” Salvation Army Love.
One of the roadies brings a round of tequila shots on stage from the house. He stays on to play the tambourine, cheek to cheek with Chachi while the other roadie takes a picture with a 35mm Canon for posterity and publicity.
The staff security guard stands at the corner of the stage with one foot up on the platform, not moving, not even a tapping foot, just chewing his gum open mouthed and staring down every audience member in turn.
There’s a random assortment of groupies. A drunken cougar with no sense of rhythm – no sense at all – dances in the front row. With her blonde bob and white blouse and red skirt she reminds me of one of my old professors who just never quite seemed to fit in though she tried as she might. The woman danced the way I imagine my professor would dance if she were drunk. A drunk looking to forget about his recent sorrows stares blankly at the wall behind the band. The longer he stands there drinking, the quicker he forgets until he can no longer focus on anything at all. A couple is making out in the corner, either inspired by or ignoring the music. A punk rock chick in shit kickers to the knees, a sweater tied around her waist, a t-shirt so tight I can see the straps of her bra and hair sticking out in random directions thrashes about, the lonely mosher at the wrong show. A couple are on something illicit. They gyrate and slide and wave wildly to whatever music they hear in that psychedelic world. A drunken oaf crashes through the crowd, barely able to stand up, he leans back and almost falls on me. I sidestep him. A couple of white guys, including myself, just stand there tapping a foot.
All this is nothing new to the band. They’ve seen it all before. They loved it once and then hated it and love it still. There are no flashing lights of laser shows or fancy backdrops. Just a bunch of boys having a good time on stage, nearly forgetting there is an audience at all. But it is still work. Lonely work. They’re on the road with few friends to greet them in each new town. They’ve ridden long cross-country roads and ridden the same ones back. They sing the same songs every night. The songs were once close to their hearts and filled them with pride to play them and share a little piece of themselves and have the audience pick up on that even if they didn’t know it. But once they’ve played them a thousand times, they begin to loathe them and hope the next hit makes the crowd forget the last one.
As the third rye hits my belly and its warmth seeps through me, I lose the words to describe it all and find my own private reverie in their place. I begin to sway and lip the lyrics. A shudder runs up my spine and reverberates in my chest and shoulders. Is that girl in front of me from work? No, that’s not her. Is my cell phone ringing against my thigh or is just the vibrations from the amp that I am standing beside? Don’t care. I stare at the dull red light of the exit sign above me. A few years ago this place would have been choked with cigarette smoke and I would have lit up beside the boys in the back room and watched silent highlight reels on the days sporting events on the TV. Though it’s my third drink, I’m not drunk. It takes more than that to get an Irishman drunk. No, it’s something else. My heart beats with the bass drum. I tingle with the rhythm and certain notes and riffs spark like neurons in my brain igniting memories that haven’t happened yet but should. Everything is all right even when things aren’t all right. Though they don’t know me the band gets me in the way that music is universal. Or maybe I get them. And it always amazes me how it all comes together. One of them digs up the words in a place on a map only he sees or maybe he divines them like some divine gold. Each has their own value. He shows his treasure to the others and they come up with a beat and a riff to frame it with in someone’s living room or garage. They remember it and carry it with them everywhere they go. Somehow they’ve written a song and they each understand it and show it to a group of people and the people understand it too.
At two in the morning they’re burning on fumes and so are we. We stand around dumbly watching the empty stage after the band has left, knowing how this works. The band comes back and does another song. Chachi has already broken a string. James plays so fast and hard that he breaks one too. Then another. Consummate professionals, they carry on until the end of the song and James screams “There’s nothing left!” and holds up his guitar as evidence. He jumps down and brushes by me as Chachi and Winchester play him off on the keyboard before disappearing upstairs themselves. Long after the lights have come up and the band is gone and the get out music is playing, the white noise rings in my ears.
Ok, so there’s a little bullshit in this account. But there’s cat piss in perfume and nothing in my other account.
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