Happy Birthday, Great Big Sea.
On March 11, 1993 myself, Darrell, Sean, and Bob, played onstage together for the first time. It was a glorious night of nervous energy at the premier concert facility at Memorial University, The Thomson Student Center. We opened for the Irish Descendants, then the biggest band in the Province.
So, yesterday, March 11, 2007, was our 14th birthday. Here’s how we spent it.
Months ago, we had been asked to play for the Volunteers Party at the close of the Canada Games in Whitehorse, Yukon. For those of you not familiar with Whitehorse, just grab a globe. You know how you usually spin it horizontally to find your destination? Well to find Whitehorse, you need to spin it the other way; vertically. Look up…way up. It’s a long ways from, well everywhere.
So we spent most of March 10th flying from all over the place to meet in Calgary to board a West Jet Charter to Whitehorse. Most of the guys flew from St. John’s to Toronto, Calgary and Whitehorse. I had been on a sunny respite in the Bahamas, so I flew from Freeport to Whitehorse in one day. 29 to -29 Degrees Celsius in 12 hours. I found it quite chilly.
Turns out, Whitehorse is a beautiful Northern Outpost town. It has that cool Western kind of Deadwood vibe with Saloon lined streets and hearty, healthy people with a real survivalist charm. On the snow and ice covered streets, you could almost discern;
-I’m not cold. You find it cold?
-Nah, its quite warm actually.
-Yeah, its like a dry -106C, quite manageable.
I love it.
The townsfolk are still buzzing from having hosted the Canada Games. An event, by all accounts, that is usually reserved for much bigger cities. It seems like all hands fared well in the Northern Hamlet and the games were a huge success, thanks to the legions of Volunteers. We were glad to get a chance to congratulate them.
So, here we are, another year older and about to start yet another tour. We must really like this gig. This tour will feature the very old and the very new. We are hoping to play four or five songs per night that we have not performed in over a decade. We also have ambitious plans to play the same number of brand new GBS tunes, all slated for the next GBS CD to be recorded just before and just after this summer. High hopes.
Good to be back.
Cheers,
Alan