Chapter Sixty Six:     TORONTO

So we're doing this web site about the big bloody concert tour that our two fabulous bands, Chrome Pie and Squatch & Friends, are sharing together as one big slap-happy family, posting notes and articles about the wonderful towns we visit and the amazing shows we put on. A boasting post, as it were. A wee bit of trumpetry for our bloody Rock Stars.

Ah, but now those lads and lasses in the band have sunk so low as to ask even US at the bottom-- yes, us, the bloody road crew --if we couldn't each write a wee little chapter to amuse the fans: pick a city, any city. So assuming any of us ignorami can write a coherent sentence we'll get to be raving music critics. At last maybe somebody will listen to us. Said they aren't so particular about poetic bloody phrasing or Queen's English composition, they'd rather have it "personal and uninhibited". Idea being to get a feel of what experiencing this tour is like for us, the common folk. From the roadie's point of view, that is.

But I get the feeling there's two versions: one for the squeaky-clean family-approved web site and another more secret private "document" they don't let any of us read, hinting that it's a little "too personal" and "uninhibited". Personal pornography, I'm bloody certain. But, buggers, I'm all for that.

Melly and Lissandra, those two unreasonably beautiful sheilas, insisted that I should give them something. Well, they can probably talk any man into giving them just about whatever they want-- 'specially in the uninhibited category. Altho I think mainly they're just hoping I'll jam in some quaint and colourful Aussie turns of phrase, y'know, like "bloody hell" and "no worries, mate" and "we're laughing". Sure, I may talk like that, but nobody writes like that. But why not humour them; this is a pretty good gig, so I'll do my part, y'know? Besides, I'd like to write about our stop in Toronto, just because it's one of my favorite Canadian cities. I even lived here a little while when I first came over from Australia.

ABOUT ME

Me being Ewan Shandler, Concert Tour Manager, and yes I'm from Down Under-- Melbourne, originally --but I've lived in North America more than half my almost 60 years now, managing concert tours and running roadie crews. Been doing that for 'bout 30 years now, I reckon-- almost gettin to be bloody professional. I've been doin Chrome Pie's tours just about since they started, from 'bout eight years back, so I know those rascals pretty well (a rum lot, them). This is my first time with the Bigfoot Band & Babes addition, so we'll see how it goes. We're laughing so far.

So you know what I do, being the guy who makes sure the arrangements are in order, that the concert venues are ready for us to come in and set up, that our hotels (when we use them) have the right number of beds, that our meals get served, that everyone on our crew is on the job and on the bus when it's time to move on, that our bills get paid and that WE get paid. That stuff doesn't take care of itself, y'know, there is no autopilot, there's just me and my crew. And sometimes it ain't easy.

ABOUT THE CREW

S&F says I can write whatever I want (which they'll edit later, I get it), so I'm gonna take this opportunity to introduce my crew a little better than they've been so far. Flesh them in, so to speak, almost as if they was just as real as the stars. Because I do got a pretty good crew this time around, which helps. Besides me, we are six roadies at the moment: four competent blokes and two lovely almost-but-not-quite-virgin sheilas. Most of them I've worked together with many times so we know our way around each other.

One of our main tech experts, Don Tennison has been Chrome Pie's steady sound engineer for the last seven years. He runs the mixers and the PA systems, is ace at his job. Got a magic ear, tunes the sound in to the venue, which is different every night and can make or break how a performance sounds to the audience. Bit of a wanker about the sheilas, tho, almost as greedy as Benny Joe.

Gene Smith is our resident computer nerd; he produces live digital imaging and sound effects. He and Don work in tandem to make the band sound and look good, a couple of talented lads. Gene's also our token darkie to give us street cred since we were otherwise an all-white-vanilla band. Although in this present constellation he's just part of the exotic mix, in there with indian and jap and latina, and oh yeah, Bigfoots. Abos, all of them.

Naw, I ain't a racist, I just consider it my duty to keep everyone equally insulted and humble. Aussie humour, y'know. Don't fret, you'll learn to love it. Or not, like I give a bloody rat's ass.

Freddy Sessions does our stage lighting, and he's a real artist (= nerd). 'Cept for me he's our oldest fart, used to do Shakespearian Theater but has been demoted to our ranks. Maybe he should get a real job some day, settle down with some nice groupies. I ain't gonna say nothing about his weight, ok?

Then we got Osmond Burnett, our security thug. He's big and mean, bit younger than me, runs our backstage security and shoves the fans around if they get too close. Actually, he's a pussycat, just ask the groupies, but it's his job to pretend to be a real asshole. We used to call him the Incredible Hulk... altho now with the squatches along for the ride he's just another wee little laddy like the rest of us.

Since I mentioned our two birds, I'd better introduce them too. Mind you, I got nothing against women on the crew, so long as they can do the job-- both muscle and tech --and don't cause the band to break up.

Marcie Albertson drives our big 18-wheeler, a 2008 Kenworth T2000, which she does with skill and caution, even keeps the log up to date. In her early 30's, been with us about 2 years. She is definitely our most macho truck driver and looks the part, lots of leather-- which she's tough as. I'm sure she'll make some lucky lesbian a nice dominatrix some day, but for now she just wants adventure and debauchery on a grand scale. However, she can be trouble if she's had a few pints. But then, so can I.

Sunny, is our baby girl, still in her early 20īs, been one year on the job. Her actual name is Grace Nielson, but nobody calls her that because she's just so "sunny" and happy all the time. We usually try to avoid her in the mornings until we've gotten our first cup of coffee-- she may be Sunny but we're not. And yes, I suppose she'll make some lucky guy a nice wife some day, but for now she just wants to score a bunch of lucky guys. Sunny does the stage set-ups, mikes and amps and cables, tunes guitars, all the bloody little details that somebody's got to be responsible for.

ABOUT THOSE ABOS

I've been around a lot of different bands, mainly rock & roll, country, even gospel for a short while, but the Squatch & Friends band is something new for me. There's the Bigfoots, of course, altho you get used to them pretty fast: to an Aussie like me they're Aborigines, just bigger and hairier. In other words, humans from a prehistoric culture, but still just people.

As for the S&F band itself, I like their music and respect their message. What's unique for me is that they're all so young and inexperienced to already be in the position they are in. I know, a lot of bands are made up of young folk in their twenties, some even teen-agers, but few of those bands have such a solid fan base as S&F do. The Chrome Pie guys were in their mid 20's when I started touring with them, and like young people, they were sometimes hard to control, overdoing the wild times, going crazy about collecting groupies, trashing hotel rooms, all the traditional rock star ballyhoo. So of course I dreaded how bad it might get with some barely adult Bigfoots (Bigfeet?).

But no, those monsters are much more civilized than most other musicians I've ever dealt with. Polite, careful-- and thank bloody God for that, Adam alone weighs over 500 pounds. And best of all, they're nice people. Deliberately kind. No complaints here, mate.

I hope you're not offended that I call them abos, or that you consider it racist. I've grown up with Australian aborigines so it's only natural for me to put the Nokhon people in that category. It only means "indigenous natives", like your American Indians. So yeah, abos are definitely considered to be "human", but it's not racist to insist that they're different than your vanilla White Man. I'm certainly not saying they're inferior-- because they bloody hell ain't when it comes to dealing with Nature, then it's us "civilized" blokes that get left behind and lookin stupid. But abos do have a problem with alcohol and cities and jobs and clock-controlled culture. Okay, not all of them, I've met darkies who've learned how to live like White Man, who get educated and become professional business folk, who've taken technology to them as a tool or a weapon (some of the best computer hackers are abos).

Adam is like one of those abos. He's this Natural Thing who's more civilized than... well, than me, that's for sure. I'd say he's one of the most balanced and talented personalities I've ever met, and I've been doing concert tours for years with top professional musicians and artists. Adam sings, plays music, writes those bloody nice songs, he's even getting rich-- and that's just his bloody hobby. The guy's actually more a politician than a musico-- organizing and running that Nokhon Nation Project thing, bringing his people into Western Civilization and making sure they have legal rights. It look a long time for the Australian Aborigines to get any rights, I'm embarrassed to say.

ABOUT THE BAND

But those other Bigfoots, they're more like the abos I know in Australia. They don't really fit into our culture-- don't get me wrong, I don't feel they need to; they have a perfectly good culture of their own. It's okay if we can just tolerate each our ways and maybe get along. Magga is a perfect example of an indigenous native at odds with our ways, she doesn't quite speak the language or approve of how we live, but she's willing to explore. Mostly she's here for Adam's sake, I'd say.

And then there's "little" Masnia, who is taller than I'll ever be but comes off as a "petit and dainty" elegant 260-pound princess. She's freaky: speaks both English and Spanish better than me, having just learned them this year. She's a furry Bigfoot but also popularly recognized as one of the most beautiful sheilas in the world. There's some kinda weird shaman magic going on there.

And their drummer, Pokey Snowchild: he's another kind of abo; an American Indian, a redskin. Just like many abos from Oz, he was destined to become an alcoholic loser in high school, a complete failure at 20 years old. But a year later he's a famous musician and an executive of the NNP, does presentations, speaks at Indian tribal councils. Also speaks fluent sasquatch lingo and teaches them English. What happened to him, was that magic too?

While we're at it, the three other "human chicks" in that band are also kind of a mystery. They're all just about too beautiful to believe, each in their own way: the Blonde American Sweetheart, the Wild & Wicked Latina, the World's Cutest Asian. All of us in Chrome Pie, musicians and crew alike, can understand why Mike (Miguel deSanta) is always hanging out with them on S&F's bus-- but nobody knows who or IF he's scoring. One of them, all of them, none of them? Mike just won't say, which is pretty bizarre for a rock musician who's never been shy about groupie orgies, which he no longer seems to have any interest in. Acts like he's in love. Which is fine, okay, but why keep it secret from US?

Oh never mind, I can understand why: Benny Joe.

Benny Joe is Chrome Pie's problem child, with a short temper and a tendency to get into fisticuffs, just for a lark. And he's getting impatient for a shot at one of those girls, although he hasn't quite decided which one yet. Says he's been trying to be loyal to Mike, offering him first dibs, but Mike won't let him know which bird is still available. There might be a peck of trouble brewing there. Actually, Benny Joe does all right with the groupies at after-show parties, so it's not like he's suffering from blue balls or anything, it's more that he's a bit of a greedy prick. Not that he wants any girl to keep, just to have once and throw away.

'Course, those girls are protected by Adam of the Very Big Foot, so Benny Joe might want to be careful about just how cavalier he gets with them. I mean, who knows: maybe Adam might actually get jealous over them-- he obviously loves them all in some way. And Benny Joe might have a rep for being a tough street-fighter, but that wouldn't count for much against Adam. Not that it would ever come to that, Adam is far too proper and polite to hit someone smaller than himself.

Unless you really piss him off, that is, Mike mentioned something about Adam going up against drug gangs in Mexico and doing some real damage.

DETROIT--TORONTO

It was almost a shame to leave Detroit; the weather was top and all that free parking in the abandoned parts of town. It was already hot when we left Detroit City, about noon Friday. Took a while to get across the border into Canada, traffic being backed up a bit, but after that no worries driving the 333 miles to Toronto. Took another 5 hours to get there by the 401 Expressway.

While driving I called ahead to take care of our obligations to confirm with the music venue where we'd be playing the next day, assured them we'd be on time, so all arrangements were in order. We just had to show up at the Roy Thomson Theater by 2:00 pm Saturday.

The weather was getting hotter throughout the day, so once in the Toronto area we aimed for one of the local beaches and set up camp there. No one was interested in exploring the town in that heat. We'd all seen enough local wonders in towns along the way, so we could all just ignore the CN Tower and the St Lawrence Market until maybe next time and shoot straight for the beach. The summer season was off and running, we found that the local beaches were already in full swing and chockers full of people having crowded sweaty fun. Lucky for us it was almost sundown when we arrived and the very biggest crowds were already starting to go home, so eventually we found enough parking spaces for our whole convoy.

There were still a lot of folk hanging on the beach and our boys in the band were kinda excited to see the difference between Canadian and American beaches: many girls wore only half of their bikinis and went topless, which our blokes tend to appreciate. Me too, I ain't so old, after all.

There was a strip of bars and restaurants, food trucks, grill barbies, bottle-os, something for everybody. We ended up in a big open party on the beach long into the night. It sorta reminded me of Australia, although all Oz beaches are on salt water, not lakes.

ABOUT THE VENUE

We've done shows at some fairly good venues in Toronto, but this was the first time at the new Roy Thomson Theater, right in the heart of what they call the entertainment district. Instead of an historical old neoclassical opera house, this was a glitzy-modern palace of glass and steel, seating 3600 arses, just the right size for our show. We were informed that it was also sold out, which meant we were earning some good money this time.

Of course, we could have made even more money if we'd signed in at Rogers Center, which sits 50 thousand more people than Roy Thomson, but the big stadiums just aren't right for this particular tour; they require a grander production, louder sound, pyrotechnics show. Which I certainly don't miss, it's always a lot of extra fuss and expense, requires a bigger crew, all that. And so much can go wrong, as I myself can attest.

ABOUT THE CONCERT

Reckon I'm sposta say something about that evening's concert, but to tell the truth, they all blend into one big wah-wah on repeat. Unless something special happens I can't say any one concert was better or worse than another. They all have their divine moments and unforgivable blunders; we're all just hoping for a good average. Fact is, I'm too busy with making sure all the stuff I'm responsible for is workin the way it's sposta, I don't really have time to kick back and watch the show. As far as I can recall, that particular concert was okay, no catastrophes, no embarrassments, we survived it. There was cheering afterward, folk seemed satisfied.

Another late night for us, teardown and the usual partying, it was midnight before we were ready to move on. But not to the next concert.

TAKING A BLOODY BREAK

We have a week's vacation ahead of us because Adam and his two Bigfoot birds have to go walkabout and do some kind of Bigfoot business. They'd be taking the S&F bus somewhere farther North, either in Ontario or Quebec, their destination seemed to be somewhat undecided. That expedition was sasquatches only, the rest of their crew would not be going with them, but they had plans to meet up with us again next Saturday for our Montreal concert. Seems they'd be looking for fellow Sasquatches somewhere up in the thousand/million-lakes area: good luck with that. Although obviously they knew something we didn't about locating Sasquatches.

One would think this was not the most convenient timing, but Adam had arranged this and two other week-long breaks before we had even started the tour. Even so, it was all rather secretive and each break coincided with a Full Moon. Assumedly somehow concerning the menstrual cycle of Bigfoot females. But Adam deemed it necessary and we had all agreed to the condition.

Not that a week's vacation was a bloody bad thing after a solid month of non-stop touring, we could all stand a break and we'd certainly had time to make plans. All I had to do was make sure someone would take responsibility for our convoy and equipment, which turned out to be quite easy because the good summer weather made Canada just as appealing as Florida for the moment. So most of the road crew decided to go camping at Wasaga Beach, supposedly he world's longest fresh water beach, just an hour's drive south of here on Lake Ontario.

Some chose other destinations: Scott would fly home to Los Angeles to spend the week with his missus and the kids, Charlie would go back to Indianapolis to visit his new girl friend; Pokey and Maki had plans to fly to Seattle for a friend's wedding and visit her parents; Sunny had met a nice boy at the after party of our concert and was off to make a fool of herself.

For me Toronto was the ideal starting point since I was contemplating a week in Cuba, because one could fly directly from Toronto, which you just can't do from anywhere in the USA. But I wasn't the only one to figure that out: Mike was also interested in Cuba and had invited Melly and Lissandra to go with him (yes, both!). That was fine, they could go their way, I would go mine, me not about to hang around and make an old fool of myself over the extra (if any) very young sheila. Didn't matter which one was extra, either one of those birds was too big a temptation for a man my age.

The truth is, I had plans to make a fool of myself over some nice brown & round Cuban birds, who as yet undetermined, preferably not too young. I'd been to Cuba before, women were lovely and easy to find, and that's not just hookers. Big mobs of Cuban wives are unsatisfied by their too-macho men. So I was planning an easy going ex-pat existence, noncommittally flirting with chicas Cubanas and swilling impolite amounts of rum in the warm evenings.

So I went out to Toronto Airport with Mike and the S&F birds. We boarded the Air Canada plane together; it was to be a nonstop 3 hour flight. It was also a cheap flight so there'd be no dinners served, but we could get started on some ice-cold Cuba Libres.

But at the very last minute before departure Benny Joe showed up on the plane, announcing that he was coming along with us. You should have seen Mike's face. And the sheilas: pure horror.

I sensed a bloody drama coming up: one I had no wish to be part of.