Hamilton, ON, Only the Lonely

I had mixed feelings about this gig all along. It was a one-off deal to fill a date, and I wondered how it was going to go. I wasn't sure if the venue would be any good, or whether they would do anything to help promote the show. We pulled up to the Casbah in good time and met Brodie, the manager. This was encouraging- he had an office and seemed quite professional. We didn't seem to have much in common with the other artists advertised in the window, but I remembered that my pal Tom Wilson had played here before, as had Michael Pickett, so what the heck. The venue looked pretty nice inside. Good room with good sight lines. The house PA gear looks modern. There is a nice solid stage with big ass monitors all over it. The club is actually clean and comfortable! Hey- nice place!

Pete, the sound man arrives and does a great job of getting us up and running. We are told that the mainstream newspaper, The Hamilton Spectator, has made us the "pick of the week" for entertainment. This is pretty encouraging, and we start to feel good about the whole gamble. We order dinner, are well fed, and sit down to wait for show time.

We start the show half an hour late, as we wanted to make sure our audience was completely and happily seated. This was easy to do as there were only 30 of them in this big room. Dave and I played well, packed out quickly, and were on the road just after midnight. It's raining hard, and traffic is backed up as a big rock act has just finished playing Copps Colleseum. It sure wasn't the big night we might of hoped for. Coffees to go. Bye, Hamilton. Dave says "hi."