Calgary II

The following post refers to a mini-tour to Calgary with Damanta and a Tarkin Show in Seattle on the Weekend of May 22-25, 2008. At the end of the previous post, the band was stuck in Banff after a van breakdown.

We rented a car mini-van around the corner from the gas station. The Kiwi sales rep at National Rent a Car pleaded with me to drive carefully (apparently it was very clear by this point that I was not a happy camper) and I assured her that I would drive the speed limit and be careful. It began to rain hard as we transferred the gear into the mini van and lurched off toward Calgary.
I have to be honest here. I have never driven so tired in my life. The last night's campfire session left me with only 4 hours' sleep and now as the the road stretched to in a straight edge to the horizon and that horizon was the featureless grey of a prairie rain, I was having trouble focusing.

When we finally hit Calgary we contacted Matt Roberts, our bass player for the weekend, who had driven down from Edmonton. He was already at the venue (It was 5:30pm) and we wanted to rehearse before going on stage together for the first time. Sadly we some how (fatigue may have been a facto here) missed the exit and ended up having to backtrack 25min to get to the exit. I hate driving and I hate driving in the rain and I hate driving in Calgary even more. You can imagine how this made me feel.

As we got directions for the third time over my phone (with massive roaming charges) I began to lose patience and take it out on Elegwen. This was a bad idea. By the time we got to the venue we were not on speaking terms and I sat in the car and tried to compose myself before going in to meet the public. We were at the Irish Cultural Centre in Calgary, it was dark and raining, we had never practiced with this lineup and we were due to go on in less than an hour at 8pm. Oh yeah, this show was booked a week ago, had no promotion and would likely be empty.

The funny thing was...it was an amazing show. Matt held down the rhythm section spectacularly on his own, Jess played brilliantly despite her stress about finishing her theses and the lack of vegetarian food options we'd provided her so far on the trip and Elegwen held the audience spellbound with his lyrics and performance. I had so much fun even danced a bit while playing which is a major departure for me, having cut my teeth on tiny stages in a six piece folk band. A friend of ours, when discussing our future tour to Europe, has said when you get paid as a musician, the money is not for the show--it is for getting the booking, rehearsing, driving there and all of the other crap--the performance is the fun part. Alex, you were so right. I had a blast and we earned every penny of it getting there.

Afterwards I loaded out and slept on the stage while Elegwen continued to regale the remaining members of the crowd with solo work on the bouzouki. He sold more t-shirts and CDs than there were people at the show (the man is a machine). I got directions to Jess' brother's and bedded down for the next stage of this weekend's adventure: Getting to Seattle for a Tarkin Show at Northwest Folklife.