Tour Diary - To Barrhaven and Back
by Trevor Kealey

October 27th, 2004

I’ve decided to dig deep into my memory and attempt to recall on this page the adventures that The Setbacks had on October 16th at Café Dekcuf and on October 23rd at Greenfields. Some weeks have passed, but I will try to capture at the very least the spirit of the nights.

OCTOBER 16 – Café Dekcuf

We rolled into the club only 20 minutes after the requested 6:00 arrival. This is pretty good for the Setbacks. It also looked like we’d all be there for soundcheck, another miracle! Of course, everything was slightly behind schedule, so we didn’t sound check until nearly 8, and it was sloppy. But this could have been due to hunger.

So after our sound check we slipped out to find some subway, but Chris had other plans. While Steve, Paul, and I dined on subs made by the world’s quickest sandwich artist (not quick enough to catch the pan of cookies he dropped on the floor though) Chris was eating chocolate dipped strawberries off of his new girlfriend’s stomach while lying on a bed of roses and sipping some mildly expensive champagne. What a ripoff.

We went back to the club to get our drink on and to worry about what time Chris would be back, and of course to listen to some live music. Defy went on first – some hardcore/metal from my hometown of Aylmer. The straight edge t-shirts two of them were sporting really conflicted with my Canadian Drinking Team T-shirt. We put our differences aside and shared the stage. I still want to know who got their beer tickets though.

Next up was The Love Machine, an emo group who’ve been tearing it up around town recently. They had played a show that afternoon somewhere, so were already sweaty when they took the stage. Nice songs that sounded great, very Get Up Kids sounding. Luckily Chris showed up during their set, so we were ready to rock.

We hit the stage and literally tore through our set list. The only pause in the action was when Paul broke another bass string (who does this?!) during the first song. Big thanks to Braden Potter from the Red Arrows for the quick act of generosity by letting us use his bass. After that we barely paused to catch our breath and were off the stage in record time, and covered in a record amount of sweat, culminating in another spirited version of Born On The River, our new closer.

The Red Arrows went on last to celebrate the release of their new cd. They impressed with their pop rock sounds and political/intellectual lyrics. I picked up the cd and it’s pretty damn good. Watch out for these guys, as they played some new songs too, which didn’t get recorded. It sounds like they plan on picking it up a few notches, which is always good in The Setbacks’ book.

OCTOBER 23 – Greenfields

None of us knew what to expect from this show, since we were playing at an irish pub which we used to frequent when we lived with our parents in suburbia many years before. It was almost a homecoming of sorts; only none of our friends live out that way anymore. I had the fellas over to my place for a Setbacks pizza party before the show since I had all the gear. We did some trust building exercises, such as falling backwards into each others arms. It was beautiful. Until Chris demolished my washroom when he decided he needed to drop off a size 10.

With that done, we took off for Barrhaven. The stage was awkward, in that the drums were elevated, and the little section in front was only big enough for two people. So I had to stand up on the drum riser, beside Chris, just outside the ring of light provided by the stage lights. We brushed up on some old Setbacks’ songs in sound check, then sat back to get our drink on.

Hearsay opened the show. We were worried when they played a Tragically Hip song during sound check, and thought we had gotten ourselves involved in a show that wanted covers – bar band style. Luckily when they played their set, they played all originals. Since they were a 5 piece, they were even more crowded on stage then us. Luckily they didn’t move around too much, or there would have been trouble.

We hit the stage around 11 and to our surprise a lot of old friends showed up, some even taking the bus to Barrhaven! Unheard of. We also had some special guests in that my parents and Paul’s parents showed up. We tried to ease up on the swears, but I don’t think we did.

The set went smokingly well, we played long and hard, bringing out a lot of material from our first album that we had stopped playing in favour of the new stuff. The crowd was loving it. We even had a mini mosh pit in front of the stage. At Greenfields! Wtf?

We finished the set with our newer songs, and by then the crowd was begging for more. Came back with some Deep Purple after which Chris completely destroyed his drum kit! He didn’t want to risk playing anymore, so he totaled it. Pushed it off the stage and everything. Incredible.

In all, a good couple of weekends. But we’re just building for our next show at Babylon on November 5th, a benefit for CKCU’s funding drive that will see us share the stage with the fabulous Double Pumpers, the Banditas, and South of 78. Be there.

-tk