DanO and I took off straight from work on Friday evening, and took off east towards Oshawa. Every time I go back, I’m amazed at how little it’s changed. None of the places I used to hang out in (except the Armoury) are there anymore, but they’ve been replaced by exactly the same kinds of things. And they all look like they’ve been there since the 60s.
After we got set up, my brother showed up with my sister-in-law and a couple of their friends. I hadn’t seen them since the summer, It was his first time seeing us do a full show including vocals. We sat around and chatted while I set up and during the sets of the first two bands.
It was an insane set, right from the beginning. Everything was gelling again. It sometimes takes a bit after a break.
The crowd was really digging in. It was a mixture of metal heads and gutter punks moshing around in various states of inebriation. It was probably skewed towards the “rat-arsed” end of the scale, now that I think of it. Hell, they were even going nuts to Wild Weekend and Red River Rock. It wasn’t a huge audience, but it was definately effective.
Early into the set, Steve’s amp gave out and we started playing the Fly (great broken string song) while he checked it out. Unfortunately, he’d blown something a little more substantial than a fuse, and had to play through a bass rig for the rest of the night. It sounded weird, but it worked and it was better solution than him getting charred into briquets on his ungrounded amp.
Good times.
There’s something in the water out there. I’m pretty sure that it’s in the air too.
We got called back onto the stage for an encore. We’d just launched into La Caza when I got bumped by Holly. I looked up and found that what I had thought was just an energetic mosh was actually a fight boiling over. People were being shoved into the monitors. People were falling over the stage. And here we were in a bar without chicken wire.
It looked like Holly was pushing the mass back. Two groups of women were going at it. I think someones hair extensions got yanked out. They don’t look as nice when they’re lying on the floor.
In all honesty, it was pretty small as far as bar brawls go. Really small, even.It might have actually only been two women, but with everyone trying to pull everyone off one another the place was boiling, and I couldn’t really see all that well. But I’ll never be able to the bridge to La Caza anymore without thinking about it. Surreal.
Sometimes you realise that there’s just no way in hell you’re going to top something. The set is at its peak, and the anything else you could possibly do would be anticlimactic. This was one of those times.
Exit stage left, and back to our beers and smokes.
Things calmed down a bit after that. If anyone was still fighting, they had taken it outside. I got to sit around again with my brother for a while before the bar closed. Everything was much more relaxed after that.
You know, there’s part of this town I really miss sometimes. The sketchy corners and the dirt. Deals going down in the shadows and folks pissing into the drains at the side of the street. Everyone partying like it’s the most damn important thing in the entire world. Sometimes it is.