February 14th, 2003 - The Backdraught Pub, Saskatoon, SK:
Happy Valentines day to
everyone out there in Slugland! We're all a little tired today after a 9 hour
drive, and don't really have the luxury of a lot of extra time on our hands...
but we've played here before and setup etc. should go fairly smoothly... Hey!
They moved the piano guy and his giant piano cockpit from where it was, right
beside the stage, to halfway down the room... that will likely help speed things
up as he tends to be a little cranky about bands taking 23 seconds too long
with their soundchecks... (sorry, still carrying a grudge from last time)...
anyway, we still have to work around his scheduled playing time, but everything
is much smoother without him right there beside us...
On the other hand, the
management here is incredible! They've treated us well in the past, but this
time they go all out... there is a prepared dinner for everyone in the band,
(except the token vegetarian 
of
course... and Mike... who is trying to eat mostly rabbit food this time out)...
but even if I can't eat it, I can still appreciate the effort... after an amazing
meal, the chef comes to our table and prepares some sort of flaming dessert
with bananas, ice-cream, and liqueur... right in front of us... of course I've
seen this before in fancy restaurants, but in a pub? Wow. Thanks to the Backdraught's
management for that...
Okay, back to the hotel
for a quick shower, then on to the gig... There's an opening act tonight - I
don't remember their name, but I might not print it if I did... Chris gets together
with their drummer to iron out the particulars, (it's easier when dealing with
an opening act, to let them use our drums etc., than to have to deal with the
changeover)... Chris makes sure that the guy isn't a thrasher first of all,
then tells him to bring his own sticks etc... anyway, after they're done with
their opening set, Chris goes up to make sure there's no surprises with respect
to the drum kit - usually just to re-adjust stuff... only this time he discovers
a cracked cymbal, AND the guy apparently just helped himself to the sticks in
Chris' stick bag... and you know, accidents happen, so this in itself isn't
so bad... but the guy doesn't even let Chris know about it... maybe he was hoping
that Chris wouldn't notice that there's a big, glaring crack in his cymbal and
his stick bag is open, minus a few sticks? I guess some people just have a real
problem with accountability... 
The
gig is great though, and the band has its best night so far on this swing...
not a completely sold out house, but the people there made it happen... we had
a fairly inebriated birthday girl singing, "Happy Birthday to Me"
during the blues song, 'I'm So Happy' when Doug encourages members of the audience
to get on the microphone... we had Doug being the recipient of a lap dance after
settling in at a table near the stage... we even had Preston Manning and Ralph
Klein onstage during 'Day by Day' - okay, not the real Manning and Klein, but
damn close... I want to take a minute to thank Joel, the house tech at the Backdraught
Pub for doing such a great job with the monitors, and to everyone in the audience,
for making this such a great show...
CU next
time Saskatoon! We're off to Assiniboia next...
Take care.
Marc.