this blog is identical to the blog found on our MySpace profile.
"So, how was New York?" she asked, excitedly.
"Well. Where to begin?"
It all started early on a Friday morning when the bus pulled into the Voyageur terminal in Montreal and out popped one tired Toronto boy. Fifteen minutes later, a cell phone rings and wakes an even more tired Montreal girl. It's not even 7AM yet, and the alarm is set for 8, so a little snooze was in order! Toronto Boy grabs the already made up hide-a-bed and gets a good 60 minute visit to dreamland, and an hour later, the kettle is boiling for a nice cup of tea to start this long day. An hour behind schedule right from the start, the entire band is in the van travelling Southbound on highway 15. It's a beautiful sunny morning as we pull up to the border.
Once South of the Border, the construction leads to a detour that takes us past the "Betty Beaver" truck stop. The legend is much better in your head, so let's keep it there! A half hour detour to pick up our gear turns into two hours, and now we're way behind schedule, stuck in traffic on the FDR... almost there... we don't know exactly what time we're playing and this adds a bit to Lo's anxiety. Who would have thought it could take 11 hours to get to NYC from Montreal? We finally pull up to the Knitting Factory at 9PM and make our way inside with our instruments, weaving through the sold out crowd to find our backstage area! It's not self-evident as there are three floors, each with its own venue and backstage. Through the commotion we see old friends from Mustard Plug and the Toasters, then on our way through the doors to our room, the Planet Smashers' merch area. Needless to say, we are playing a ska festival organized by the legendary NYC Toasters' frontman "Bucket" called "3 Floors of Ska."
We've made it now with over an hour to spare, but for some reason, Lo is nervous and a bit antsy. All the bands are playing ska-punk, save a couple in our room that play more traditional stuff (Coldspot 8 sounded good.) The sound seems pretty sketchy for some of the bands. But it seems to be for the louder bands, so we needn't worry too much. We set up our little merch display and hang out a bit before we play. Soon comes the moment we've been waiting for. The Hub City Stompers' bass player generously allows us to use his bass guitar and we're almost done with our line-check just after 11PM. A big fight had broken out right after the Stompers finished their set which cleared the room. People are now starting to trickle back in as we begin our set.
We played particularly well on this night, and all our songs go over really well. The audience is very open minded and enjoys what they are hearing. It's quite different from anything else going on that night - unique. The response is wonderful, and the band finds that comfort zone where it knows to just relax and do what it does. After all, that is what we came here to do. We get a lot of very positive comments after the show from other bands (# who tried text messaging for the rest of his band to come down because he didn't want to miss anything finally had to run up quickly on our second to last song so that his band would at least get to see us play a bit! ## who gushed that we were his favourite band of the night. MySpace friends Audio Fiction who enjoyed the set and would like us to play together in the future - as would we. And several other MySpacer's who discovered us on that night - sorry to Deb who had to leave before our late set!)
We got to hang a bit with some friends, at the end of the night, Coolie Ranks (former Toasters, Pilfers) who recognized Lo from her days with The Kingpins, spent some time with us talking about music (and King Apparatus) and his reunion show with the Pilfers at the Knitting Factory Nov 4th. We congratulated Bucket on the continued success of the 3FOS bi-annual event, and on the big band he put together for that night - a 4-piece horn section, keyboards, and guest MCs (incl. Coolie).
After a delicious sandwich from around the block, we head for home. In under 9 hours, we were back in Montreal. King Kong, Dan and Lo enjoy "lunch" waiting for Mitch's bus-ride home to Toronto! And then it's off to sleepy-land for all of us! All that for less than one hour on stage. YES! THAT is what it's all about. And we went, and we kicked, and we will do it again!
Another MySpace friend came down from Montreal specially to shoot the show, check out Photos. Thanks to many people... John for driving Cat, Megan and Leah. The 3 girls for their help, and photographic skills. Clarke for bringing the booty. Previously unknown MySpacer's who came looking for us on MySpace when they got home! and found us!! And for the people who have and will be extending gracious offers for our speedy return to NYC!
Lo and the Magnetics