May 18th, 2003 - Kokanee Summit Party, Kokanee Breweries, Creston, BC:

We're the only band I know of who's played an AA convention AND a gig at a brewery in a month's time... oh well, it's all about balance I guess...

Anyway, this is one of those gigs that we look forward to for a long time... it's a festival atmosphere - a party outside on the actual brewery grounds, complete with barbecue, a sandpit for 'beach' volleyball, free pictures, t-shirts, etc. And us. The weather holds out just barely... it's a little windy, cool, but the rain waits until just after the encore. As a matter of fact, some of the women there obviously find it TOO hot... I always hate that part. John, the promoter of this event, takes care of everything really smoothly... 2000 people just having a great time, drinking, listening to music, and partying outside... thanks too, to Carline for taking such good care of us... The 'Honeymen' are the opening act tonight, playing their brand of Celtic ska...

Okay, so the show part: at some point during the show, Doug is out terrorizing the audience and notices that there is a group of girls watching me intently... and before you know it, Doug has the entire audience chanting, "Marc is sexy, Marc is sexy, Marc is sexy..." then, after informing all the girls that I'm gay, leads the second chant, "Marc is sexy, Marc is gay..." (his usual, politically correct style)... I'm not, incidentally... gay I mean... and Chris has his own entourage of devotees - only they're all male... they lead their own chant of "Chris, Chris, Chris..." many times during the show and almost explode in the drum solo... one other hilarious thing happened in between the two shows... Chris, Jay and I are walking back to the stage from the dressing room, (which is in the actual brewery itself), and two women stop us and tell us that they don't know if they should mention it, but that Jay, "...looks just like Boy George..." Chris and I don't stop laughing until after we get to the stage (it's a long walk); a new nickname is born-'Boy Jay'.

(Jay is on the left... or is he..)

The bumsolo tonight is six bums deep and lasts longer than usual, as well as being slightly more enthusiastic... I won't bore those of you familiar with the bumsolo with explanations - if you don't know what it is, look up some recent road diary entries...

After the gig, the band, the staff, and some audience members head down to Jimmy's Bar, which is downstairs from where we're staying... staggering distance for sure... it's early still, just 8:00... a lot of people want to see how hard they can make it for us to get up early tomorrow and drive home apparently... as soon as one beer leaves my hand another is being shoved into it... I always hate that part too...

I have to include the ride home, because it's quite funny: Jay, Chris and I are going to get up and leave early, because Chris has a gig in Abbotsford, I have to teach, and Jay wants to get home to his family. So we agree to get up at 6:30. At 7:30 Chris knocks on my door... Jay's pager battery is dead (that's his alarm clock), and Chris forgot to unplug his laptop from the phone line, so he didn't get his wake-up call... I don't have an alarm and didn't get a wake-up call... so we're an hour later than we wanted to be... okay, straight to Tim Horton's - always... Chris is driving and orders, "I'll have a decaf coffee"... "I'll have to make it, do you want to wait?"... "How long will it take?"... "About 4 minutes"... "that's okay, I'll just have half coffee and half hot chocolate then"... "Okay, anything else?"... "Yeah, I'll have a bagel with herb and garlic"... "This isn't your day, we don't have herb and garlic right now"... it was even funnier by the time he got to ordering the muffin, which of course, they didn't have... she immediately listed his choices for him, to avoid him asking for something else they didn't have... oh yeah, that coffee? Chris didn't really want it, so he gave it to Jay to replace the one that Jay spilled all over the back of the van... and when we're almost home, roadface has completely set in now, after 8 hours driving - we're into Chilliwack when suddenly the freeway becomes a parking lot... the radio says that a mobile home has caught on fire on the number 1, and traffic won't be going anywhere for awhile... so we do the smart thing... we decide to head over to the number 7, thus avoiding the accident scene and the traffic... we head off the freeway and into Chilliwack... deep into Chilliwack... we're so deep into Chilliwack that we're all humming the theme to the movie 'Deliverance' in our heads... and guess what? You can't get to the number 7 through Chilliwack... there are two choices: go back to the number 1, back into the parking lot, and tough it out until Mission (usually about 20 minutes, but much longer today), or go through the back streets and dead-end roads (I'm not kidding, we had to go through a 'No Thru Road'), backtrack to Agassiz (15 minutes), then onto the number 7 there, and home... obviously, this is the one we pick... and by the time I'm home, I'm 3 hours later than I expected... Chris still has to drop Jay off, then drive home, get ready for his gig, then drive back out to Abbotsford... ouch! And we'd all do it again in a heartbeat... anyway, a great gig and some fond memories!

Cya nextime... Marc.