Journal: March 2003
March 2003
By Rob
February 23. Flight to London UK
Tegan and Sara already in Europe. Have not seen them for approx. a month. Hour 7 of flight: Overwhelming need to destroy something or at least stretch legs. Attempt at bathroom yoga causes massive, uncontrollable muscle spasms in lower back and left ass.
London day one.
Severe jet lag. I look right first when crossing the street (opposite of north america) but forget to look left. I escape a grisly car maiming by mere millimeters. No sign of Tegan and Sara today yet.
Feb. 25 AM.
I wake at 4am because it's sometime in the afternoon the previous day for me. Lay awake for 4 hours. Venture out for breakfast and am instantly overcome by severe allergies from London's early Spring. Take over-the-counter medication containing legal crack in order to restore motor abilities in eyes and face.
Feb 25 PM.
Step on stage to play half-hour showcase gig and finally reunite with T&S.; We exchange pleasantries then commence playing music. London audience unacustomed to Tegan and Sara banter- get told to SHUT UP and PLAY! Ouch... Afterwards, some industry lady proclaims our show to have been "real". What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Feb 26
Tegan and Sara fly to Milan to live the high life with Italy's upper crust. Chris, Rob and host Joel pub hop through Soho. Addiction to Vodka Red Bulls begins.
Feb 27
Finally get proper night's sleep. Take the "tube" into town to check the Julia Margaret Cameron photo exhibit at National Portrait Gallery where I am led to believe London's celebrities in the 1860s were in constant state of deep sorrow. Either that or heavy opium innebriation. So in the spirit of modern London I go out with friends again for some heavy alchohol innebriation.
Feb 28
Reunite with T&S; at Heathrow where Sara immediately extoles the virtues of Italy's powerful and unified anti-war tactics- peace flags hung in the windows of every building they passed. Sara also informs us, based on a T&S; photo shoot in Milan, that the "in" colour for bathing suits this summer is anything NEON! We immediately begin campaign to hang neon bathing suits in every Canadian window as form of protest against fashion industry re-hashing worst of the 1980s.
March 1 at the less-than-antiseptic Lee's Palace, Toronto.
Monitors working this time. Another packed house and a fine, fine show. Thanks T.O.
March 2 Detroit, Siberia.
Tour van breaks down outside of Windsor. Sara, Chris and I cab across the border. Wait at El Zocalo restaraunt in "Mexicantown" while tour manager Hibbins and Tegan get towed across in van. I'm wearing a black trench coat and as well as Chris, carry black laptop attache case. Sara wears a concerned look on her face as she talks on cell phone, asking Tegan, "have you made it across the border yet?" We order nothing and loiter in foyer of restaraunt seeking shelter from Siberian winter outside.
"Hmm strange?" I think to myself. "The staff are eyeing us with suspicion, as if we're some sort of sketchy drug runners."
"Can we help you?" Juanita asks.
"Oh no, no thanks (I break out in a sweat) we just needed a place to hide out, er...I mean hang out while our friends try and get across the border." That was smooth...
"Uh yeah... I'll have two chicken burritos please."
March 5
Boston is one of America's oldest cities and therefore it's street grid is fashioned after London's fascinatingly ancient, buggy-drawn-by-horse-which-goes-wherever-he-wants-whenever-he-wants, street pattern. Cracking good fun. What should have been a crisp, clean 2hrs from North Hampton, Mass., turned into an additional 4hrs in Boston when circumnavigating the entire metropolitan area in search of hotel, then venue. Cracking good fun chappy! Our frustrations soon melted away because of a plentiful and enthusiastic Boston crowd. We, in turn, delivered the T&S; Show in fine form.
March 6, am. En route to NYC
Blowing past countless ditched cars rendered impotent in the late winter snow storm. "Ha ha Suckas!, British Columbia drivers rule!"
pm, NYC
A very kind patron of the arts checks us into the legendary Waldorf Astoria on Park Ave. Among other guests; US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, the Police and remaining members of the Clash. Guess which of these famous guests causes the hotel to be evacuated due to a "suspicious, unclaimed package" (read: "bomb threat") ? Fortunately most of us are out to dinner, except for Tegan who, for all we know, is getting frisked by the cops.
An hour later, once bomb threat has "passed", we dinner eaters decide to take party to hotel rooms. Looking quite distinguished (in a Rock'n'Roll sense) from the usual Waldorf guests, and carrying bags of booze, we breeze through main lobby and into elevators completely unchecked- as if some denial and a good vacuuming took care of the little problem with the "unclaimed package." I thought... oh I don't know, maybe one or two extra security guards would've been nice for guest morale. With mild trepidation at first (considering the insecure circumstances), soon followed by a relaxing of inhibitions (thanks to trusty ole' CNN downgrading "Terrorist Threat Level" to "Yellow"), the party, as earlier mentioned, continues in room 1205....
...Then further continues on the main floor bar where, as providence would have it, a patron of the arts (a different one) foots the impressive bill for a group of us celebrating life, carrying on as usual, in the thankfully still intact Waldorf Astoria. It's remarkable how some well-aged (and priced) Oban Scotch will aid one in sleeping like a baby, even through such adult anxieties as floors 1 to 4 potentially disintegrating beneath you as a result of anti-American sentiment.
March 7, Washington DC
Sara,Chris and myself drink many Vodka Cranberries following our noteworthy performance to a substantial and galvanic group of Washingtonians. Continue the ribaldry at hotel by pillaging insanely over-priced mini bars in two different rooms then email embarrassing babble to special "friends" back home.
March 8, Washington DC the morning after.
Receive email reply to last night's drunkenness from friend and immediately sink into overwhelming feeling of horror over the amnesia of it all. Oh yeah, and I'm really hung-over as well. Mom, if you're reading these journal entries, I'm not an alcoholic, I swear!
But I think Sara might be.
Just kidding.
She is a light weight though. I mean all I had to do was drink a glass of OJ and do some push-ups and I was sober as a nun but poor Sara had to drag us to two different "cracked out" MacDonalds on our way out of town so she could chuck in their washrooms. Okay, so one of those restrooms she had good reason not to use as a vomitorium (I'm confident she'll elaborate on this matter in her own journal entry). And from my perspective; waiting outside in the van, watching, what I can only assume were narcotics ingeniously hidden in Colgate toothpaste boxes, being passed from a sketchy looking man with third degree burn scars all over his face to other sorry looking folks shouting, cussing and wobbling about or just plain washing their cars in the MacDonald's parking lot; her decision to puke elsewhere was a smart one.
"Elsewhere" turns out to be another MacDs two minutes down the road and yet another heart-warming tale of the effectiveness of the D.A.R.E. program in American schools; which Sara will once again gladly share with you in her own special way. While she was doing her thing inside the rest of us were privy to what is apparently a right of Spring unique to Washington DC- folks utilizing MacDonald's garden hoses and parking lots to wash and polish their vehicles. I guess doing this at home just is'nt as...fun? uh...glamorous?...maybe, expensive? how bout' normal? We high-tailed it outta Dodge quick-like once Sara finished her belly-aching.
March 12, somewhere in Louisiana
Driving West on raised, bridge-like Interstate 10 through Louisiana marshland along Gulf of Mexico enroute to SXSW music festival in Austin, TX. Hour 8 with 7 more to go in today's driving marathon. The air outside is warm and muggy and comes as welcome relief from Winter back in New England. In contrast, the air inside the van is air-conditioned and reeks of junk food and 5 humans sitting motionless for the better part of a day.
Season One of the Osbournes on DVD steers our comatose brains away from watching hours and hours of endless, mostly flat, uninspiring scenery and thinking about all the things we'd rather be doing than sitting in a van. Well Tegan reads at times but that's because she's the smart one. Oh yeah and Chris busies himself with "stuff" on his laptop but that's just to annoy the rest of us.
March 13-15, Austin, Texas
Cant sleep, get up, shower, eat good authentic Mexican next door, drive to venue called.......I cant remember, some half outdoor/half indoor joint, hot outside like summer here in Vancouver, we all walk down to some canal area to sit by the barely flowing water then realize it smells like sewer so we sit on some cement away from sewer and talk about relationships amidst distraction of unique-to-Texas bird bathing itself then walk back to venue to play for a good sized crowd that seems to appreciate what feels like a sluggish performance due to heat and sweat soaking my face and shirt and socks and i've forgotten my towel, drink beer to cool down and sign autographs and drumsticks, which are not the easiest item to sign, for some girls that drove from Houston, pack equipment into van, drive to gas station where I think the gassing-up is done so I turn on van to blow cool air and see pump still in gas tank but too late van blows up and we all die, me and Tegan go to Heaven and everyone else goes to Hell, then we play another show later at the Ritz that feels strange and distant, Tegan, Nick and myself look for food afterwards and are served by a waiter who is afraid to start drinking too early tonight because he is part Irish and Indian and something else i cant remember, oh yeah, Texan and so once he starts he cant stop, then we go to watch Gob play and drink free drinks while Pharell Williams from the Neptunes thanks Gob for playing cuz he's the host, I'm feeling a little drunk, we're on the MTV guest list to see Simian, the Rapture and Blur at a big club but we miss Simian and the Rapture are cool for about three or four songs and Blur are great especially their new Afro-pop stuff because Damon Albarn spent time in Mali and the girls and boys here tonight are very stylie and pretty like being in New York and I'm even drunker but dont assume I'm an alcoholic because I'm not and you dont even fucking know I have a pack of smokes rolled up in my right shoulder of my very cool vintage Police shirt, I offer to give Tegan some $$$ for cab ride home but she pays, I wake up early next morning cuz i need to get some words out of my head and to a friend via email, then walk downtown with Chris and stop to gaze at Confederate Army statues and wonder if the US will ever have another civil war and if Southerners still feel resentment towards Northerners because they "won", then we play a barbecue in a mansion for Canadian industry people and in the front row are our friends but it's weird because it's like playing a house party where everyone's pretty much sober and god i hope i never have to do another one of those again, hungry so we find a real Texan barbecue joint and eat meat and beer and i have'nt eaten as much meat as I have in Texas and i forgot but before this dinner i went with Tegan and Sara to their MTV photo shoot and drank free beer and looked at Ben Harper for about two seconds then talked with a nice man from MTV and a very hot blonde waitress then went for food then went to watch Cat Power and Spoon at an outdoor venue with two thousand other folks, Spoon were fantastic and Sara was sitting outside listening from the sidewalk because she was unusually tardy and could'nt get in to the sold out show, we felt bad, she felt like she let herself down, I was drunk again, we all went back to the same restaurant as the night before and Sara thinks I passed out at the table but i was just kidding then I cant remember what happened after that, i feel like I'm forgetting some important event......
March 16 abandoned downtown core, St Louis, Missouri
Notice coffin in basement of Galaxy night club on our way to dressing room. Later revealed that coffin is used in a secret fetish night held here, which on a previous occasion got the bar charged with 14 counts of "Simulated Sodomy"- a criminal offence in the fine state of Missoura.
March 17 enroute to Chicago
Sense of relief in driving north, back to Canada as US looms days away from yet another foray into bloody war.
March 21 Regina
Sound on stage definitely worst of tour but i am kept aloft by hundreds of screaming Rob fans whose Beatlesesque excitement is induced by Tegan and Sara's teary eyed farewell speeches to me. You see, this was very possibly my final show with those two lovely friends of mine…