One For The Books
a night that allowed me to do that with a thunder and vengeance
that kindled deep into my bones. Earlier that week, I had been
planning to come to Kingston to film a few scenes for the Matt
Show. A few days before, however, I was notified that sir Joel
was to be playing a show at The Ale House on Princess St. I
didn't think much of this as I'd seen him once in May and another
time in August at the folk festival in Ottawa. Both sets, though,
had him showing more folk restraint and less rock throttle.
I found out, however, that the Kingston show was the first
show that the Emerge would be playing with him in a long
while.
Upon hearing this, I longed to see the great rocking spectacle
of thunder whap Dave Marsh and Joel leading the charge (with
help from Pete Elkas) and contacted my old acquaintance Dave
Marsh (as I decided that bugging Joel would be too much) to
see about getting on the guest list. Dave was all-too-pleased to
make it happen and told me to give him a heads-up closer to
the show.
Wednesday came and I dropped Dave a line. After filming a
few scenes with my friend Josh and getting some thai food
into me, I hooked up with Brendan and we headed to the venue
for 9:45 (even though the show was supposed to commence at
9). The lineup was a quarter of the way down princess st on a
wednesday night. Brendan held a spot while I checked to see
if we were on the list. Bingo. I saw my name on a sheet of
paper behind the glass. I stepped back out into the street and
flagged a surprised Brendan. It was all too surreal.
We stepped into the venue and got a close spot near a brick
wall that we could lean on. It was a sold out show (and the
alehouse holds about 800 people) and the show was
as fulfilling as a warm taco on a cold december afternoon.
After the show, the surreality continued as Brendan and I
thanked Dave for the guest listing. He was happy to speak
with about our mutual friend Charles and Halifax and seemed
quite satisfied from the show. Then he said 'hey, do you guys
want to hang out and have a drink?' Was he talking to me?
Weird. Sure enough, he was. After that, Dave disappeared
for a bit but Joel recognized me and was happy to chat gear
for a long time and talk about his old accordion-turned-
guitar amp. After chatting with a whiskey-toting Joel for half
an hour, Dave came out and informed us that drinks had
been ordered for last call at the Toucan down the street.
And so it was that Joel, Brendan and I walked together with
Dave leading the way down to the Toucan. Joel ate from a
massive bag of Lays chips and passed them off to Brendan
saying 'please take these - I will eat the whole thing'. Joel
then checked his phone messages and told us about Gordie
Johnson playing the melody to a song his son wrote and
wanting Joel to write words for it.
After the cold walk, the fun continued. The bartender didn't
seem too happy that a band entourage decided to descend
upon her haunt after 2 am and began taking away drink
glasses so as to get us out. Stories of the road were shared
and Dave Marsh chugged a whiskey so that bartender
wouldn't take it away undrunk (I actually also chugged a
beer for the same reason).
As 3 rolled around, the group of us were escorted out and
Brendan and I said our farewells. The cold rain fell softly on
Princess Street as Brendan and I headed sleepily but happily
back to the House Famous to rest.
