A reflection back on this past weekend: Red Lake and Dryden
So this past week the band headed west from Thunder Bay to play a couple shows in North/West Ontario.We had booked shows in Red
Lake on Friday and Dryden on Saturday.
Sarah (Bresnahan – violin, vocals), Ty (Tyler Miller -drums) and I (Nate Zahn – guitar, vocals) hit the road early on Friday to go meet Brandon (Mcnab –bass) outside of Dryden. After a quick lunch and rest at ....Brandon....’s house we headed west to Red Lake.
Red Lake is actually the most Northern town in Ontario that you can reach via the Tran-Canada highway (except for ice-roads to Pickle Lake in the winter – thanks to Peter for quickly correcting me during my opening set ;-)). We were also informed that Red Lake had the most Northern traffic light in Ontario.
Our venue for the night was the Royal Canadian Legion. You might think that this is an odd place for a show, but as we learned that night, it is the place to be in Red Lake Friday is also the weekly ‘meat draw’ which brings out the whole town! We all had a good laugh at the concept, but it’s actually a lot of fun! It’s simple MEAT + BEER = good times … well to some.
We played two very diverse sets trying to appeal to the very diverse audience at the show which ranged in age from 19 to 80! A few songs in we had people dancing and the rest of the night was history!
The definite highlight of the night was during a jam out of M.J’s ‘Bille Jean’ when a lady, who was celebrating a birthday that night (and was hammered), came up to dance with a male blow-up doll with a huge dildo attached to it. She really gave it to that doll! It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. She was like my Mom’s age dancing with this blow-up doll performing acts that cannot be re-mentioned. We all lost it!
Truly the best part of this show was the support we received from the town. We sold 20 CD’s and made almost $400 in donations (I forgot to mention that the show was by donation). Truly an amazing experience. A big thank you to Heather for her food and kindness, and to Jordan ‘Fingers’ for the beds.
Next day we headed south to Dryden. We got to the venue early afternoon and realized that the bar (The Central Saloon) didn’t have a PA. Oopsie! Like my mom always said ‘Assuming makes’ an ASS out of U and ME’..... Well we had to figure something out. Dryden has nothing at all for a music store (the SOURCE had 1 pack of electric strings!), so we went to the next best thing, a WAL-MART. I know that wal-mart sells really shitty instruments now so I though we could possibly find a mic we could plug into the bass stack. We found the only mic they had in the store and it was shit! So shitty that it went to a ¾ inch output (like for you ipod) so it needed an adapter to a ¼ inch (patch chord). So Brandon bought the mic for 15 dollars and we returned to the Central Saloon. I was very reluctantly to say the least to use this mic. I compared the feeling to Sarah having to play a plastic toy violin for the gig. I would be singing out of a 15$ mic from wal-mart though a second channel on a bass amp. Now that I look back it seems hilarious, but it wasn’t at that time. Nate got grumpy (sorry for the third person thing).
We went back to ....Brandon....’s place not far outside of Dryden and watched a documentary of the making of ‘..Graceland..’. What an inspirational video to watch before a show. All of us are huge Paul Simon fans and love that album.
We got to the Central Saloon and set up to an eager crowd (I guess they haven’t had too much entertainment lately and were anxious to hear some music). We were told by one very intoxicated man that we needed to change our watch an hour ahead from Eastern Standard because we are late (referring that we should be playing already- it was like ..8:30..! haha).
I set the mic up with a mic stand that we had in the truck and plugged it in to the bass cab and took a deep breath. It didn’t take long to find the sweet spot on the mic and be able to emit an adequate sound. We played three one hour sets with the crowd really getting it to it by the second one. It ended up being great. Could have had better vocals but not one person at the place complained- they loved it. Of course they would have liked it more if Sarah could play ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’ but they were happy. Sarah truly is the new band favorite. That girl gets swarmed after sets. Thanks to Bill and his staff and to Joshua for the kinds words and for sticking around for all 3 sets.
This was truly a great weekend. We meet great people, made some money, and played music. What else can you ask for!