Gas Problems...
by Trevor Kealey

March 10th, 2004

Our show on Friday was a tremendous blast. Clothes Makes The Man played tighter than ever, and we kicked in a little bit more rock than normal. The place was packed, the beer was flowing, and Eugene Haslam only slightly ripped us off. A success indeed!

Events leading up to the show were not indicative of this success however. As usual, Chris somehow managed to make himself scarce during all the heavy lifting. Steve, Chet, and I loaded the gear, hauled it, and unloaded it. Actually, Clothes Makes The Man helped us unload a bit, as they were already waiting at the club (a band from Toronto beats us to a club in our hometown - a testament to the setbacks promptness).

Apparently Chris needed to go to Songbird Music to get some drumming doo dads. Upon arrival he found “they didn’t have the right kind of felts”. Whatever. Bottom line, he now needs to go to another store in the south end of the city. I guess he’s never driven that far before because he ran out of gas!

Who runs out of gas? How does that even happen? His excuse: “there was no bell or anything, I saw the light was on, but I was waiting for a beep or something”. Then he walks to Esso nearby, but leaves his wallet in his car! He had to barter for some gas to take to his car. He ended up trading a picture of his mom (which he keeps in the pocket closest to his heart), and half a pack of Export ‘A’ King Size cigarettes for 2 dollars worth of gas to take to his car.

Meanwhile, back at the club, I had secured myself half the stage for my gear, and put Chet and Steve on the other side while they looked for parking. A smooth move on my part, though they would have other words for it. Then I took a stab at setting up drums. I wanted to set the cymbals up like Joey Kramer from Aerosmith, with the cymbals up so high that you need a stool to get to them. I was talked out of it for the sake of time.

Speaking of stools, that is one of the things Chris was going to rent, so while getting drum sounds for the sound guy, I had to stand behind the kit. Aerosmith cymbals would have been good for this. It felt very primitive/tribal to hit the floor tom while standing.

Eventually Chris showed up, reset all the drums that we had worked so hard on, and we plowed through sound check and left the stage, leaving about 38 seconds for Clothes Makes The Man to do a sound check.

Cheers to everyone who came out and enjoyed themselves. Awesome times.