Entry No. 2: Hit the Road, Hit the Home (May 26)
JE Sheehy
There’s two kinds of touring musicians – those who actually hit the road and those who say they hit the road, but are barely driving to a different neighbourhood.
I’m in the second category.
I’ve never been overseas or west of Sudbury, Ontario. I just play southern New Brunswick a lot.
Somehow this got me labelled as a road dog. I guess that pavement is pavement whether it’s in New Mexico or New Brunswick.
Being a stay-at-home rocker also means being a stay-at-home impostor. Why am I even bothering with sharing these blog entries, while other bands spend more time on the road and probably have better stories? I think it has to do with the fact my life seems predictable like The Truman Show.
Playing live is probably the most predictable thing I do; I get to the venue early, drink, play and leave. What happens between all of that? Beers.
In the last decade, I’ve played completely sober five or six times.
They were usually interesting shows, since I couldn’t escape social anxiety and had to witness being in a bar for what it really is.
When you’re drunk and someone heckles you, your instinct wants to be louder than that person. When you’re drunk and the bar’s empty, you don’t care. When you’re drunk, you can’t drive home after a show, so you have another beer and you escape reality for at least another little while.
When you’re sober, everything just hits you in the face and oddly enough, you end up fighting in a reactive way. When you’re drunk, at least you feel somewhat proactive.
In new towns, I like to hit the nearest bar to the venue and get a sense of the place based on the drinking hole. At home, I stick around the venue and drink.
I’ve been doing this since I turned 18 and just never stopped. It was fun at 19, normal at 24, frightening at 27 and now that I’m almost 30, it’s kind of boring. Since I’m already slacking on drinking in general, I’ve decided to take a break of my steady diet of Alpines.
Enough of the whole Chicken Soup for the Beer-League Musician’s Soul thing.
***
The Trick played the first of two shows with Dante Matas and Mike Legere at Pepper’s Pub (Saint John) on Saturday, May 26th.
Before hitting the road, this stay-at-home musician shot a music video with Young Satan In Love.
Yeah, I’m part of that band now.
I’ll give you background on how I joined them in another post. You’ll find out about the video soon enough, but I’ll let you in on two things:
#1: I re-enacted the Star Wars Kid video
#2: Marc Bragdon has a Celine Dion cut-off shirt and I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. I need that shirt, bad.
***
I’ve never been a fan of Peppers, although I haven’t played it since 2010 or 2011 with Physics for Poets (RIP). A pub crawl showed up during our soundcheck, danced their lives away and then hung out to get us to autograph their t-shirts.
Don’t worry, I ain’t no big shot; the person who gathered the most signatures would win a bar tab at the end of the night.
All things considered, this was a fun show.
We know enough people in Saint John to have a crowd. Dante Matas and Mike Legere, were nice enough to help us load the backline in and out. The staff were helpful and nice, including a bartender who was really happy that the sound engineer got thanked by the first band.
I get it. Bands don’t thank the sound person enough anymore, myself included.
The Trick rocked through our set, to the point where [Mike] Nason traded his Telecaster for his SG during Grounded.
We rocked that hard.
I guess I’m OK with Peppers now. I’m also down with this whole playing sober thing.
It always helps when the touring bands are good people, especially since we’re playing another show with them on Tuesday, May 29th, at Read’s in Fredericton.
There are two kinds of touring bands:
#1: Those who introduce themselves and hang around the venue
#2: Those who don’t introduce themselves, but still hang around the venue
Dante, Mike and their bandmates fall into the first category.
Thank god, it’ll make Tuesday less awkward. I always hated orientation week.
Dante Matas + Mike Legere + The Trick | Read’s Newsstand and Cafe | Fredericton, NB | View Event
