12) Welcome Steve Crane…………..
We have a new guitar tech, Steve Crane, and he just practiced some guitar changes with Smitty at soundcheck….it was like watching modern rock ballet. He is SO fast. Amazing. ..we have all known Steve for years. He is an amazing guitar player, a veteran of the Vancouver music rock scene since the ’80s. He is one of us! I faked Classical Gas on the digital piano at soundcheck, and he liked that.
I have known Steve since the famous Vancouver Summer of Love (Expo ‘86) when he was with a band from Calgary. He was also huge buddies with John Stoltz, former Trooper drummer..hey !.they were both in that band….Kay-lee-reesh……..however they spelled it. Cool band. But good luck finding that on youtube. Too bad all our old bands, (that never got record deals), all disappeared like that, hey.
Nowadays you don’t exactly need a deal to make a video or a CD!
My Dad had a 3-piece folk group in the ’40s when he was a teenager. They made a record, a 78…… I wonder where that went? We cleaned out the house as quickly as we could. …wheww………you know…..I am still bringing truck loads to the recyclers. There are 2 outbuildings, both really cool cabins at GOGO MANOR, I live in one, and the other is what I am so excited about rebuilding….as soon as I get all the last dead lawnmowers out of it. Everything from now on will have heated electric floors.
See !?!?!?!
No matter what, I end up thinking about that stuff.
Let’s hope that Steve Crane has a gas and that there are lots of stories to share, soon.
This is his first night with Trooper, as tech, so I don’t wanna hassle him too much.
(…written in a van, sitting next to Scott, with Clayton behind………..)
13) Flight Cancelled………………
The crew had to drive on this tour, as the band flew, and that very, very rarely happens. Once every several years, I bet. The flights were goofy, including the one that just now got cancelled, in Castlegar (Cancelgar)……as we start a new day here on the road..so I am now back in the bus with the band, adding to this report, driving through the snow to Cranbrook…..we gotta get to Calgary like NOW.
The mood of the band dropped the moment we heard the words “flight cancelled”.
You know the song WHITE BIRD, by the band It’s A Beautiful Day……..I am singing that now.
Smitty loves that song too.
It is 1pm, and word is that there is already a huge line-up to get into tonight’s gig (we are on in 8 hours) and the show is sold out twice capacity. It is THE party of the Grey Cup, and I know that the Telus Convention Center holds an easy 5 000 people. Yeah we gotta get there.
We are soon to hit the highest Pass in all of Canada, we are going 120……it is snowing, We just slowed for a curve…..Salmo Creston pass, here we come…….we are still in the low land, here, and it is snowwing like mad……….this is actually a bit scary. Writing this helps at this point. I have a rosary too.
The pass is 5887 ft, 1774 meters. We are still going uphill, so it is not so bad, all fresh snow. Quite beautiful, really. This is the first little blast of Christmas. I just phoned home, the kids are all eating French toast, there is a fire going, and the Mexican guy is hanging in there, with no privacy. All is well…………..I reminded them of the Church Bazaar today.
The International students are SO excited to see snow, and to experience Christmas. They had a howl at Halloween….each kid carved a pumpkin, and we lit them up and placed them with a thousand others along the side of a road. We have fun. And I have fun shopping for them. Did I tell you that my side gig now is grocery shopping ?
You know, the whole plan of today was for a late hotel check-out, an easy one hour flight, and hang out at the hotel all day. (Not for the crew, who drove, two hours after we got off stage last night.) But this gives us some time to tell more stories, and for Ra to show us the totally cool films that he entered into a film festival.
I can talk about myself.
Rather than talk about everyone else all the time.
Also, since last time I wrote any road report, I have become an even huger religious fanatic. I sit in on classes, read a lot, and am really having a gas with it. This is not the website for that topic, but anytime anyone wants to chat about God stuff, in person, I will take up the topic.
Doesn’t mean that I have to live differently than ever before, other than the odd bread and water fast, but I still hang out with the same gang, and have the same kinda fun. Religious nuts get a bad name in society, sometimes, ‘cause some are quite goofy, but I think there are goofy people in every interest group.
14) Last night’s road block in Castlegar…………..
(…written past midnight in the hotel after the Castlegar gig………..)
The guys were still laughing this morning about a road block we drove through after the gig last night. I rant and ramble on the Eddie Jobson Forum a lot, like over 3000 posts, ‘cause I am such a huge fan of my fave violin player, and this morning, of last night’s roadblock I wrote:————————————
Had that vocal solo
from Harry Chapin’s TAXI
going all night last night.
Tried not to drive everyone nuts.
They think I sing like an old lady.
And maybe they are right.
Sometimes.
I gotta delete that song from my mind
before getting in the bus
with the guy’s today.
Hey, I drove the gang back from the gig last night
and hadn’t planned to,
so I had my licence at the hotel,
………and got pulled into a road block
I told the cop that we are the rock band Trooper
and we just played the Bar and Grill….
and he asked how it was.
I told him that “there were tons of people,
mainly chicks, yung ones up front, old ones to the side.”
He liked that and waved me by.
The guys could not stop laughing.
It was the stupidest thing I think I had ever said.
But what the heck hey…….go where the spirit moves you, I guess.
15) Disclaimer…………..
You know I am just kidding, right?
We are all spirits, all equals.
I don’t care where the young people are!