A Week-End In Hell

I started this thing as a way to get some of my better "road stories" out there for anyone interested. I'm three posts in now and haven't really done a full on road story so I figured it was about time. I plan on posting more of these but you should know that they will in no way be in chronological order. I have been in 5 different bands over the last 17 years or so, each with their own adventures, so these stories will come in random order. Try to keep up...

December 1992. Lagerhead (cool name huh?) was booked to play a week-end in the bustling metropolis that is Winnipegosis, MB. Cool, we thought. We'd never been there and we always enjoyed playing to a new audience. Home town shows are great but it's cool to get out there and do your thing in front of a group of people who don't actually know you and feel obligated to support you. They weren't paying much but we still had all our rental gear from the last couple shows and figured "what the hell". On a side note, please do not get the idea that money is the all important factor here. I'd play every show for free just for the joy of it but that's not the most affordable way of doing the rock and roll band "thing". Anyway, like I said, the bar was not paying well but we figured if all went well we could get more from them next time. Besides, we had a very lucrative booking on the Sunday afternoon back home at a Christmas party for children in Shilo which would more than make up for it. More on that later...

Friday afternoon comes along and we begin loading our gear into the infamous Lagerhead Touring Sedan, in reality a broken down, worn out, piece of crap Dodge cube van we bought for $300. It barely ran but it had the coolest "aroogha" horn ever. Our trusted conveyance chose that particular day to break down for the last time. An omen we pretty much ignored as we decided to rent a truck from the local U-Haul folks. More expenses but again, we were ok with that. So after unloading one truck and loading another we were off. A little later than expected but off none the less. Our rhythm guitar player and drummer were in the rental truck while our lead guitarist caught a ride with our crew. Bass player Doug and myself went together in his car. Three separate vehicles, seven guys and way more PA gear than we ever needed. Are you keeping track of the expenses here? After what seemed like forever, really only a little over two hours, we arrive in Winnipegosis only to find that Dean has managed to get the rental truck hung up, badly. It seems that as he was driving around to the back of the bar to park the rental truck he decided he should follow the fresh snow mobile tracks in the freshly fallen snow. In his defense the actual "road" was difficult to find. While slowly following the chosen path he quickly discovered that these tracks were made by machines much lighter than our huge 1 ton rental truck. The snow also effectively concealed a rather high concrete wall. This wall was discovered by Dean as he drove over it and plunged the front end of the truck over a nearly 4 ft drop. The truck was not going anywhere. The back end of the thing was not even touching the ground any more and it was at a very nasty angle. We unloaded all the gear by pushing it uphill inside the truck and carefully lowering it down to the ground. We then had to lift and carry everything because we could not roll it trough the snow. Some of this stuff is very heavy too and required all seven of us to get it into the bar. When everything had finally made it inside a tow truck was called to free our stranded rental truck. More expense. Dean was of course by now NOT real high on anyone's favourite persons list but all things pass and we got to work setting up for the show.

As we were working we noticed that the bar was huge. It had a stage and one of those folding walls that divide the room in half. The staff told us that when we actually went on the bar would be completely open so we pointed ourselves toward the folding wall as that side of the bar appeared to be where most of the people would be. The side we were on appeared rather small in comparison. Enter the bar manager. Most of the time we dealt directly with the owners of the small local bars we played. As it turned out the owners of this particular establishment were away on vacation so they left their 18 year old daughter in charge. For the first time. Ever. She's barely old enough to be IN the bar and she's in charge. Oh well, we thought, how bad can it be? Her parent trust her with the place, we should be alright. Ha ha ha. Little did we know....

Showtime. We hit the stage for set one around 9:30pm. The bar is now completely open and we are on stage facing entirely the wrong way. The huge folding wall has been opened to reveal...not much at all. About three tables and 4 pool tables. It turns out that most of the seating and ahem, dance floor area, are directly in front of us after all. A few minor adjustments and we are now pointed, more or less in the right direction. And we're off. The bar is by no means packed. There are maybe 30 people scattered throughout the place. Apparently Winnipegosis sort of "shuts down" for the winter. There are not many people actually in town so therefore, not many at the bar. No worries, we've played for smaller crowds and still had a great time. We can do it here too. Things are moving along nicely. The small crowd seems appreciative so far. After our third song we stop and I begin talking with the crowd a little. The usually witty stage banter I have become famous for. Then it starts. A rather large gentleman sitting near the back of the bar starts yelling that he wants us to play "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR. It's a great song but not in our repetoire. I explain this to the guy but he is undeterred. That's what he wants to hear and he's not giving up. He continues yelling for the song. I take a closer look at the guy. He seems to be about 8 ft tall and weighs approximately 600lbs. He looks a lot like some crazed mountain man, dirty flannel jacket, scraggly beard, wild eyes etc. It looks like this guy has just come into town after spending the last few months out in the bush raping and killing bears. Great. This is exactly what we need. Sasquatch wants to hear CCR and we don't know it. Oh well, on with the show. I begin to introduce the next song but Bigfoot is still yelling out his request. I try to ignore him and move on but Dean, being the smart ass he is, plays the first few bars of "Bad Moon Rising" since that's how much he knows. Kong lets out a roar of approval and begins dancing at his table. Excellent, crisis averted. Dean finishes up and we go directly into our next song. About half way through a glass ashtray (you could still smoke in bars back then) comes flying up on stage and shatters off the back of Dougs' hand. Blood and glass are everywhere. To his credit, Doug finishes the song without missing a beat. Randy, lead guitar, however, unplugs his guitar and is off like a shot. I look out at the Yeti and ask what will go down in local band history as the single most stupid question ever..."Do you have anything else you'd like to throw at us, asshole?". He did. He reared up on his hind legs and made a very nearly successful attempt to throw his entire table at the stage. If not for the two girls sitting with him (I will never understand how this monster got not one but two young girls to sit with him. They were probably scared shitless of him as well and willing to go along with anything as long he didn't eat them) literalaly hanging from each of his arms, I'm sure I would have caught that table right in the face. I stood my ground however and proceeded to berate the behemoth from the relative safety of the stage. Doug had understandably gone to take care of his wound while the rest of us, except for Randy who was nowhere to be seen, held our ground. There was much yelling and profanity, threats of more violence and some very terrified looking people in the bar. The bar staff attempted to calm Godzilla down and we talked to the previously mentioned 18 year old girl who was in charge. We refused to continue until she had the creature removed from the bar. She said she couldn't do that as he was a regular and she was just as afraid of him as everyone else. We stood fast on our request however and spent the next 2 1/2 hours sitting on the stage, waiting for the beast to return to his cave out in the woods. The little girl in charge tried everything to get things under control again. She cried and begged us to continue, she cried and begged IT to leave. She went and found Randy in his room and offered him sexual favours to come out and continue the set. Finally, around 1:30am the thing from another world got bored and left on his own. We played two more songs to end the evening and prepared to pack up our gear and go home, screw the second night of the gig. Our light man came up to me after the show and commended me on my bravery for calling the man-thing out the way I did. I explained that I was not in fact being brave but rather I was too scared to actually move. Besides I said, if he were to come at me I would just hit him with the heavy base of my mic stand. It should have slowed him down enough for me to make my escape.

After much crying and begging from the girl in charge we agreed to stay and finish the gig on Saturday night. She promised to not let Gigantor back into the bar so we figured it would be fine. Saturday comes around and we decide to head into the bar in the afternoon to set up again as we had torn down a lot of the gear in preparation for our hasty retreat. What's this? The bar is closed and no-one is around to let us in. We find out that the bar is closed until 8:00pm on Saturdays because no one is around to come in during the day in the winter anyway. We can't help but wonder why anyone would book a band to come and play, knowing that the bar is most likely going to be empty any way but oh well, they did and here we are. We are bored however, and hungry. Our hotel rooms appear to be booby trapped with TVs on rickety old stands that look like they'd fall over if you tried to turn one on. We decide not to risk it and head out looking to sample the good side of Winnipegosis. Did I mention that this whole town seems to shut down for the winter? After finding nothing open we decide to make the 1/2hr trip down the road to the big city of Dauphin. We start by checking out some of the bars in town. The first one we go to is open but nearly pitch dark inside, and it has a dirt floor covered in sawdust. The people in this place look like they might all be related to our friend from last night so we don't stay. Next up is the Boulevard. A big, brightly lit strip club. Excellent, naked women is exactly what we need to take our mind off of the last place. We get there about 5 minutes after the only dancer working today has finished her last show until later this evening. Dammit! Oh well, we are told that another bar in town also has strippers and they run all day. Off we go. We get to the Tower and find it to be your typical small town bar. Nothing fancy, no big dance floor and cool lights. Lots of local drunks nursing there mugs of draft beer. We take our seats and order a round from the one waitress on duty. She's your typical local waitress. Not ugly but not gorgeous either. She's looks like she's been around and seems pretty nice. We chat with her for a while about our adventure the night before and we all have a good laugh. She seems to really hit it off with our light man. The bartender yells out that it's "showtime" but we can't see a stage of any kind. Our waitress proceeds to move a couple tables together against the wall directly in front of us. She presses play on a small ghetto blaster she put on the table, puts down her tray and climbs up onto the "stage". Three songs later she is completely naked and writhing around on a blanket in front of our light man! The last song ends and she calmly gets dressed again and returns to her waitressing duties. We end up sitting in that small bar watching the same not entirely un-attractive waitress get naked for our light guy every 20 minutes or so for most of the afternoon. We are still hungry though and finally drag the guy out of there to go searching for food. He gets the waitress/dancers number and we invite her to the show later tonight. She can't make it though because she has to keep dancing and serving draft beer here for the rest of the night!

We end up at Smitty's as it seems to be the only place open. Being a small time rock band we have very little money left after our afternoon spent with the naked waitress so all seven of us opt for the all you can eat salad bar for our meal. We completely decimated the thing. We ate damn near everything that was there. A full tray of dinner rolls and pretty much everything else as well. We also made quite a large mess. The staff did not look happy with us at the end of our meal and I'm pretty sure if we had ever tried to go back there they wouldn't let us in. We all pile into our vehicles and head back to Winnipegosis to get ready for the show.

Showtime part two. We get into the bar and get things ready to go. The crowd is a little bigger than the night before and saints be praised!!! The giant from last night is nowhere to be seen. We go on and actually manage to play our full three sets this time. We are however still kinda pissed about the way things went down so we play all three sets with attitude. Usually we were a fun loving, happy go lucky friendly sort of band. This night we were in full on F you mode. I barley talked to the crowd at all and we basiclaly just played one song after another as quickly and aggressively as possible. At one point during the last set I had the mic stand between my legs and was leaning forward making mean "rock faces" at the crowd. It came time for me to start singing again so I started to bring the mic closer to my mouth again. At this exact moment Doug, the bass player decides to step on the base of the stand which is on it's edge, between my legs and slightly behind me. He stepped very lightly but when added to the fact that I was pulling the mic up to my mouth anyway, this caused a chain reaction that brought my mic crashing into my bottom lip with sudden, violent force. My lip exploded on impact. I'm pretty sure I chipped a tooth as well. Blood started gushing from my mouth and I spent the rest of the song yelling out a stream of the most impressive profanities I have ever uttered, directly into my still working microphone, all the while attempting to kick Doug and threatening to kill him right then and there. He looked just as shocked as I did angry. We finished the song and he apologized. We started the next song when it became apparent that my mouth was no longer under my total control. It was pretty badly damaged so we cut the set short, said good night and F you to the crowd, and I went off to collect our measly $600. The little girl in charge was very difficult to track down. I thought she might be avoiding me but I kept up my search while the rest of the guys began tearing down and packing up. We were getting the hell out there tonight and driving back home right away. We could not leave town fast enough. I finally find our "boos" for the week-end and she proceeds to explain that she is not going to pay us the full, agreed upon amount because we did not play a full night on Friday. I rather calmly explained to her that that was more her fault than ours since she did nothing to get the Beast out of the bar and that if she had done that, we would have played the whole night. Suddenly this meek little girl who had spent most of last night in tears and offering her body as incentive had a complete and total personality change and became quite aggressive and belligerent. I can give as good as I get so I changed my attitude as well but she held her ground and refused to pay us the full amount. I took what she was willing to pay and made it perfectly clear that our agent would be in touch with her parents. The more mature, professional version of "I'm telling!". I went back to boys, explained the situation and we finished loading and got the hell out of Dodge, making sure we left the biggest possible mess on the stage and in our rooms and vowing never to return to Hell on earth, er, I mean Winnipegosis.

After driving through the night, taking rest stops to sleep on the side of the road every now and then we make it home. Doug and I did the math during the ride and discovered that renting the truck, getting it towed, and getting stiffed by the bar manager, coupled with the cost of gas and equipment rental we actually came home from this gig owing money. Excellent! That really made it all worth the trip! Thankfully we still had the lucrative Xmas party in Shilo on Sunday afternoon to help offset the loss. They paid us $400 to set up and play a grand total of two songs before Santa arrived. The audience was mostly children under ten and a few parents so volume and profanity levels were very low. We got all the hot dogs and chips we could eat as well and there were more kids than expected so Santa went long and we never played another note that afternoon. The people in charge of this show did NOT stiff us on the payment so we were able to cover our costs after all. Doug and I look back and laugh at the whole situation now but we are still in agreement that we will never return to Winnipegosis. I can't help but wonder if the beast is still up there in the bush, raping and killing bears with his bare hands..........