“Thirty Minutes”
On Thursday August 16,2001, I was booking shows at this tiny club in Edmonton called the Sidetrack Café. Built on the bones of an old train station, with a full sized bright yellow caboose parked on the front lawn, “the Track” was iconic. Two hundred and twenty seats. On a good night. KD Lang had cut her teeth on that wee stage in the 80s.
I’ve booked well over a hundred mostly all ages shows in that room, over a period of about 4 years.
This particular night?
I’ve got an 8 piece ska band from Vancouver called The Hounds of Buskerville doing soundcheck. Nice guys. Horn section. Big “checkerboard Vans” energy.
Everything is normal.
Which, if you’ve ever worked in live music, is your first warning sign.
The phone rings.
I answer it.
Guy says,
“Hi, I’m calling from John Ducey Field. We’ve got the Trappers game here (Edmonton’ s baseball team) and it’s about to get rained out.”
Okay. Weird start.
Then he says:
“There’s a concert booked tonight… with Men At Work.”
Yes. That Men At Work.
Australia’s gift to cargo shorts and suspiciously upbeat existential dread.
He goes,
“Do you have a gig going on tonight?”
And I look around my 220-seat club.
At the ska band. At the five paid customers leaning on the bar.
At my own fragile sense of control.
And I say,
“…yeah.”
He says,
“Great. They’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Thirty.
Minutes.
Before I can ask any follow-up questions ; like legality, physics, or possible expenses , I hear it.
The stadium loudspeaker.
Echoing across downtown Edmonton.
(announcer voice)
“MEN AT WORK WILL BE PLAYING THE SIDETRACK CAFÉ TONIGHT …FOR FREE.”
Within ten minutes…
There are 5 hundred people in my 220-seat room.
Five hundred.
People. In August, in Edmonton .
It got real sweaty, real fast.
Fire-code-nightmare sweaty.
Like… the walls are damp and breathing sweaty.
I’m doing crowd math like,
“Okay… if everyone just agrees to exhale at the same time, we might survive this.”
Then, they show up.
Smiling.
Relaxed.
Like this happens to them all the time.
And somehow, against all logic, bylaws, and the will of the fire marshal …. they absolutely destroy the place.
Perfect sound.
Huge energy.
No ego.
One minute it’s soundcheck for a ska band.
The next minute I’m hosting an accidental, illegal-feeling , overcapacity international pop history moment.
So it goes.