It would be fun to play another Garner Firebird show. I must have thought that hundreds of times over the years. If you've heard pretty much episode 14, you know the band's story. But where that left off with the release of our one album in 99 and Pete moving to Ontario, then meet in New York, that wasn't the end. Over the years, we'd get together at Dino's and Jam, even if we'd been years apart. We kept in touch, sending each other YouTube clips of obscure songs and bands and talking music. Maybe it was using our music for this podcast, which allowed a few more people to hear it for the first time and the positive response to that.
Maybe it was my inclination to observe anniversaries. And maybe it was just the real sense of time not giving in. What are we waiting for a moment? 2014 marked the 15th anniversary of the album's release and the last time we played a show. So that March I sent out a tentative email sounding the boys out. I told them I'd been playing the bass along with our songs and all the ones we covered by DaVentures and Link Ray and all those cats. I said it was still a joyful thing to do. And I mentioned that my wife used to work at the Hard Rock Cafe in Toronto and still had friends there, some of whom knew the CD and might be open to letting us come in one night and play a gig in their show bar.
It would mean a 401 trip for them, of course, but no one I knew in Toronto had ever seen me play music live, so there might be some interest there. And here's where I was really thinking. If we booked it for eight months down the road, we could make it a charity gig for Movember and donate the money we made to the Hard Rocks team. I was pleasantly surprised to hear back from them the same day. Dino was 100% in, and Pete said, It's like a breath of fresh air in the anti-utopian, post-apocalyptic, carbon dioxide-filled atmosphere that has been my life of late. He admitted this was overwrought, but clearly my timing was right.
We traded emails into the summer and set list ideas, and I suggested we bring in a couple of buddies of mine to join us on a few songs. A Garner Firebird first. Brad Harrison could play trumpet on Dick Dale's Miserloo. Sean Jacklin could play keyboards on anything by Booker T and the MGs. By September, we firmed up the deal. On Saturday, November 29, 2014, Garner Firebird and friends would take over the second floor of the Hard Rock.
The location was a big part of the excitement for us. In the 1960s, Yonge Street near Dundas was the hub of Toronto's young rock and roll scene, and the Friars Tavern, now the Hard Rock Cafe, was the very place Bob Dylan came to see Levon and the Hawks play in 65 before hiring them as his backup musicians for his first electric tour. They, of course, became the band. Once the plans were in place and we were ten weeks away from the big night, I knuckled down and started rehearsing the songs at home, and the boys met in Montreal to do the same. My sister's 50th birthday was in mid-October, so I combined my bus trip home to be at her surprise party with a Firebird Jam session. Our first seven years.
It didn't take long to shake off the rust, though. The playlist quickly took shape, and the week before our show, I was scheduled to be back in Montreal for a theater gig, so we lined up another rehearsal then. It was good to hang out with the guys again. I caught up with Pete's wife, Trina, and Pete and I jammed with his boy, Max, whose passion for and ability to play music at age five is stunning. As per Max's orders, we kept it to Daytripper and My Sharona, but I know there have been worse versions of either. November 29th was a gray day, but pretty mild, and good enough for the guys to drive down from Montreal.
Aside from Pete and Dino making the trek, I was also delighted to learn that my old Palace and Billiards co-worker, Eric Colby, was taking the bus down, too. That made him the only person in the house who had ever seen us play live before. And my Spot the Kiwi bandmate, Roy Wybro, and his love, Steph, cashed in some frequent flyer miles to come down for the weekend, too. The downside to producing, though, is having to run all over the place yourself. Setting up the CD table, putting up posters, coordinating the soundcheck, hauling in the gear with the guys. It left me little time to just hang out with the folks who did show up.
And it was in our sound check, and we got through maybe a song or two, that Peter's old-school Fender tube amp up and died on us. Nothing casts a pall on a rock show you've driven 540 kilometers to play like having your only amp mysteriously give up the ghost. We'd been a little nervous before that point. Now we were close to despair. Brad's keyboardist kindly offered Pete her amp, but it didn't have reverb, a big part of his sound. The club sound guy said he could run Pete's guitar through the house monitors, and he could hear himself through those, but it gave him no real control. He was understandably grim.
I called anyone I knew with a guitar, but no one was picking up. Heat's friend Carlton, though, a guitar hotshot himself, showed up at Soundcheck, and my wife raced down to King Street with him to bring his gear back, allowing us to try a song or two before we had to go on. Rather, it was the Brad Harrison quintet who went on first. They did a set of Horace's silver jazz covers and sounded great. I was glad I chose an act so different from our own and one that set the bar so high. I met Brad at my first audition in Toronto in 2006, and we've been friends ever since. At most, maybe 50 people showed up at the Hard Rock.
I was hoping for at least twice that, but if you've played enough bars and done enough indie theater, you know 50 is a respectable number. And the folks that showed up were as supportive as could be. Short of dancing, anyway. We sold some CDs. We acted like goofs. We screwed up a few times. It was vintage Garner Firebird. We recorded the show. People took pictures. Colby shot video. In some ways, it was all better than we could have hoped. Even with the flubs and the amp troubles and the smallish turnout, I look at the video and see more than what's on the surface. It comes in flashes.
It appears, sure enough, to be three 40-something guys playing surfy tunes to a small house, dressed in their white shirts and black ties like the Knack in 79. A little paunchier than the boys on the CD cover, a little thinner of hair, everything beginning the long fade. But then they hit a groove. A pocket. As well as they ever did in 98, the only year they ever recorded a live show. So they hope to be at least as good as that. And they are. The guitarist leans back coolly, focused on the fretboard as he adjusts the whammy bar on his baby blues strap. The drummer holds it together while still throwing in these crazy fills that have no business working, but do.
The bassist is trying too hard, but in spite of himself looks to be having fun, constantly moving, exhorting his mates to get there, giving the big snub to gravity and time. He'll pay for that in the morning. But just in those flashes, isn't it worth it? Isn't this why we do it? Why we love it? Why we've always loved rock and roll? Two sets. 23 songs. And it's over. My wife has to work in the morning. Colby has to grab a night bus back to Montreal.
But Pete and Dino and I get a drink at the Imperial Pub with Brad and his wife and Roy and Steph and my old high school pal Linda. We're exhausted. And relieved. We did something, didn't we? We did. Some money for charity? Great. But we kind of reminded ourselves that we still are, still can be, the best versions of who we ever wanted to be. And that noise we made might be the alarm for all of us who forget that. Time. What the hell is that?
All you need to know about time is, there isn't as much as you think. Pretty much, episode 55. Hard Times and Hard Rocks. Written and read by Scott Clarkson. Music by Ronnie Hawkins, the band, the Brad Harrison Quintet, and Garner Firebird.