So I'm a rock star again, apparently. This weekend I went to Michigan to play my first of two shows with Critical Mass.
The show was at a high school and I was iimediately hit by how much sportier American high schools are. I spent some of the pre-show time looking over the team photos and they had every sport you could think of (except Curling): Football, volleyball, basketball, baseball, tennis, golf, soccer, bowling (!), track, field, wrestling, swimming, and so on. And with the exception of football and wrestling, every sport had men's and women's, and each gender had three teams per sport. This with a student population of just over 500.
the only other notable differences came at dinner time, when we were offered chili dogs.
ME: (looking at dude-ahead-of-me's hot dog, which looks like someone literally threw up on it) Uh, can I have one without chili?
SERVING LADY: Oh, you're one of the Canadians, aren't you? Guess you don't want this either (points at case of Mountain Dew).
I'd say she was culturally stereotyping me if she wasn't TOTALLY RIGHT. Gotta love the land of the free and the brave and the vomit dogs with a side of chilled urine.
The show itself went really well. Due to usual border anxiety we didn't bother trying to haul my kit over, instead bringing my breakables (cymbals, snare, kick pedal) and hoping the opening band had some decent gear. Fortunately the promoter had asked a friend of his to bring her kit, a Yamaha Stage Custom. She showed up halfway through soundcheck and I almost cried with joy. I should mention that the openers were really, really nice guys who said I could use any of their stuff I wanted. I totally forget what the first band was called, but the second band was called Obsidian Crush and they were very fun. Extremely nice guys, too, especially the drummer, Josh. Check them out if you be diggin' on the pop-punk.
Our set went pretty well. I hadn't played that hard in a long, long time (too many small venues), so I wound up with a cramping hand, three broken sticks and a mild case of whiplash. My ears were also ringing as we were having some monitor problems.
the best part was afterwards. It's been a while since I got to do the post-show schmooze thing and I totally missed it. I signed a bunch of autographs and chatted with fans who were really cool. The Critical Mass guys were super nice about it -- they included me like I had been in the band ofrever and asked me to get in pictures and all that stuff (our bassist, Scott, later told me I "looked the part" of a rock star. I blush). I'm really excited to keep doing this stuff! Someday you'll hear of me, I'm sure.
IN OTHER NEWS: Luke's dirgible race is not going as planned. Somewhere over Tanzania he lost some ballast and wound up having to ground himself lest he float into the atmosphere. Fortunately for him, he met a small primate named Pepe, who weighed just enough to increase his ballast! He has since taken back to the skies and is in search of the race leader.
Caleb can be found dancing in front of the Orange Julius at Fairview as he asks for napkins.
END TRANSMISSION.
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3 comments:
I never got your autograph, I guess we were soo close that we were really far apart. At least I can always remember that time we did that thing
Oh man. I love Americans. Every time I go down to the States and discover another one of their random Canadian stereotypes, I am SO entertained.
Sadly, this stereotype was true. I didn't want a chili dog and I hate mopuntain dew. It probably didn't help that I was wearing a parka, put maple syrup on my hot dog, and kept saying "Où l'enfer peux-j'obtenir quelque poutine?"
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