Well, how was that for a serious weekend?
Months ago I saw the Saturday Grey Cup gig, and the Monday Gilda event penciled in on the calendar. I also knew that the Grey Cup game would be on the Sunday and a quick glance at the NHL Schedule, showed that the Leafs would host my Habs on the Tuesday. Four days of sports and laughs spells “Boys Weekend Out” in my Kingdom every time.
I quickly sent notes to a few foot soldiers to join me on this mission. All of them, and more besides, answered the call swiftly and certainly. My buddy Perry C, Greg and Allan H, and Barry C were amongst the Principals in the four day excursion, but others came and went as well. Sean also knows a good time when he sees it and he recruited Greg B and Jeremy P to anchor his away squad. Throw in the regular GBS Cast and Crew, a few cameos by Jim Cuddy, Pat Boyle, and the Trailer Park Boys and you’ve got a serious brew going.
It started with an afternoon flight to Toronto. We arrived at around 3pm, and got downtown, checked into the hotel, and back in the lobby just in time for our 4:30 sound check. The venue for the Grey Cup gig was just as I imagined. It was a long cavernous concrete hallway decorated with more product placement and ads than the Yellow Pages. By the time our set was to start, around 10pm, the capacity crowd was well lubed and raring to go. I can’t imagine the acoustics were anything to write home about, but all hands seemed to enjoy themselves.
Some even enjoyed it a little too much. There was a huge raised and railed VIP area to my right which held at least five hundred people. Sounds great, but there must have been three times that many on the plywood platform by mid concert. By the end of our set, I noticed security guards begging people to move off. By the encore, I saw more security and even kitchen staff in full chef-ish garb trying to get people off the deck. The reason, it turns out, was that the merriment of the concert goers far out lasted the structural integrity of the VIP area.
Yes, that’s right. We broke the floor.
At the BareNaked Ladies afternoon show the following day, I noted that the whole area was roped off and not accessible to the general public. I recall breaking or re-breaking the floor at the West End Cultural Center in Winnipeg some years past. I believe the original credit for the compromise of that well used dance floor went to the Skydiggers and the enthusiastic crowd from the Peg.
In any case, the Saturday show went well and we did the Elvis dash, right off stage into an awaiting SUV and were dropped at a dandy pub right next to our hotel. We instructed all our guests and friends to meet us there for post show shenanigans. After a welcomed Guinness, someone announced that there was a band playing in a separate room and sheepishly asked if we might, later in the evening, consider sitting in for a tune.
“Why later?!” I said, and grabbed an unsuspecting Jim Cuddy by the arm and dragged him onto the wee stage. He looked slightly panicked and very reasonably questioned what I had in mind for us to play. I, of course had not thought it out that far yet, but was not about to admit that to Jim and the awaiting crowd.
Over the next forty minutes or so, myself and Jim and the band onstage, along with Sean, and a few others stammered our way through a few tunes including what I remember as a dandy version of Jim’s “Falling Down Blue”. Great fun, anyway.
The night went on at the pub and I had great chats with some family and friends and a very interesting dude from Sante Fe or somewhere who had a very unusually high knowledge of the geography and smuggling history of Rural Newfoundland. I was just about to ask him how he knew all this stuff when I got distracted and, poof, he was gone deep into the night. It was kind of like that Strider (I think? You know, the dude who turns out to be Aragon) dude in the first Lord of the Rings film.
Don’t have a clear recollection of how the evening finished, but I know it was in a dark hotel room and involved a Vascular Surgeon, a Shanty man, an Anesthesiologist and some Trailer Park Boys. Top that cast.
The early arrival of my Thespian friend Allan Hawco (the pouty dude in the Clearest Indication Video) bolstered the Grey Cup game day festivities. Breakfast at the Irish Embassy was capped off with Irish Coffees, which set the tone for the marathon that followed.
We made our way to the BNL Tailgate party and spent most of the afternoon listening to the lads, but watching the scantily clad gals dancing very suggestively above and behind a long Molson’s Bar. I got all moral about it at first, asking the boys why any company would stoop so low as to have sex kittens pole dancing behind the tables where they vend their wares. How base and dumb do they think we, the consumers, are? I went on at length about this naïve marketing ploy for quite some time. It was not until my pockets were almost empty from buying rounds of warm Molson in plastic cups that I clued in to the obvious;
This shite really works. I gave in then and enjoyed the rest of the performance. BNL sounded great and never looked so good.
Then we met up with Sean and Bob and all the collected parties and were escorted to the Skydome for the game. We were given seats in a box, thanks to Brad Watters, the key organizer of the whole Toronto event. We ate hotdogs, and hooted and hollered appropriately as we really did not care who won. I was glad for the Green Victory mostly because Brett Butt from Corner Gas sat with us and he is a die-hard Riders supporter. Well done Saskatchewan.
Oh Yeah. Really liked Lenny Kravitz at halftime, but could not really hear much in the box. I wonder how it sounded on TV.
Immediately following the game, myself, my buddy Perry, along with the Hawco brothers Allan, mentioned above, and Greg, who played percussion on the first GBS CD, headed for whatever Exit was closest to our box. We found ourselves being rounded into an elevator that went down so we figured we were headed in the right direction. A gent in a blazer with an official looking patch asked if we were with the media. I innocently looked around and saw lots of reporter-ish looking fellas and answered,
“Yes, Sir, we appear to be with the Media.”
Not a lie. Technically speaking.
We followed the sports journalists around the lower levels of the Stadium till we came to a large opening, where the Zamboni (amazing, US spell check does not recognize zamboni) would enter if this were a hockey rink, and realized that we were actually at field level! Keeping a confident pace near but not among the reporters, we walked past dozens of Security Personnel and what must have been an entire Police force, right up to another large opening where the Roughriders were exiting the field.
At this Gate, a wrangler hoarded all the reporters behind a median to await their turn to hit the dressing rooms and press conferences. He shouted,
“All media behind the barricade!”
Now that we had piggybacked off them long enough walked right past the works of them, and burned them off like they were wearing crowns of thorns and carrying crosses and our name cards all read Judas. As we brazenly strode beyond their kennel, I believe I heard a *** crow in the not too distant November air.
How far could we go? The boys looked a bit nervous, and I confess that I was about to shite myself, thinking that at any moment were would all be tazered and spend the rest of the weekend on the T.O. Lockup. But I must have been doing a grand job hiding my trepidation because there we stood right in the middle of the walkway where the victorious players were exiting and celebrating. No barrier, no security for fifty steps, just me and the lads standing there like the Commissioner in a casually dressed receiving line.
Doing my best, “Of course I’m supposed to be here” routine, I continued telling a story to Perry and the Hawcos as if this were completely a reasonable and expected locale for four dudes from St Kevin’s High school in the Goulds to be hanging out immediately following the Grey Cup. I even interrupted my tale a few times to take high fives from the players as they left the field.
In their defense, many of them shook my hand at first as I stuck it out in my self assumed official capacity, but then they did a double take, no doubt thinking,
“Who the F**& are those guys and how the F&&^ did they get down here?”
But they were so caught up in the celebration that they just carried on into their dressing room.
Now I’m thinking, this has been quite the coo. But how to top it off without being dragged kicking and screaming into an awaiting Paddy wagon?
The grail. The Grey Cup came clear into my peripheral sight. I tried my best to stay cool and continue with my now bloated tale to continue our façade. Then as the trophy of the day came within a couple of steps I stop the story, and turn to some three hundred pound sweaty hulk, open my arms like he’s my best friend from kindergarten, smile as proud a smile as I can, and sing:
“We did it!!!”
“Yeah!!” he replies, I’m sure trying not to be rude and break the spirit of the moment, by acknowledging to himself, me, and everyone around, what in retrospect must have been completely obvious. He has no clue who I am or why this hairy dude with his chums is standing right exactly in the way.
As any kind kindergarten friend would do, he takes two steps in our direction and hands me the Grey Cup. Yes that’s right. He hands me the Grey Cup.
I did not take it out right but laid my hands on it, and went “woo hoo” or something, totally falling out of my ‘supposed to be here character’, and turned to the lads to get a good look at their expressions of disbelief. We had just watched the Grey Cup, and strolled down to field level and celebrated with the Trophy in hand. No passes, no credentials, nothing. And now for the first time, our faces showed our delight and surprise with what we were getting away with.
The jig was up, and I knew it. Time to bolt. I took my hands off the Cup and walked directly back the way we had come, bee-lining it for a bright red exit sign. As we hasted, two or three security guys with headsets looked our way and seemed to be motioning towards us. I quickened my step and the lads followed pace. A few more feet to the door and we’re clear.
“Hold it!!” is shouted in our direction.
I turn to see an approaching Police Officer. We’re shagged.
The heavily armed man walked right up to us and said in a most hospitable tone:
“Use the next exit; it goes right to Front Street. You’ll avoid all the crowd.
Nodding, took ten steps to the left, pushed the metal bar on the door and escaped into the Toronto night.
More about the rest of the weekend later.
Cheers,
Alan