{"id":1228,"date":"2026-01-26T17:04:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T17:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/?p=1228"},"modified":"2026-05-18T22:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:49:08","slug":"thirty-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/thirty-minutes\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0\u201cThirty Minutes\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

\u00a0\u201cThirty Minutes\u201d<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

On Thursday August 16,2001, I was booking shows at this tiny club in Edmonton called the Sidetrack Caf\u00e9. Built on the bones of an old train station,\u00a0 with a full sized bright yellow caboose parked on the front lawn, \u201cthe Track\u201d was iconic. Two hundred and twenty seats. On a good night. KD Lang had cut her teeth on that wee stage in the 80s.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve booked well over a hundred mostly all ages shows in that room, over a period of about 4 years.<\/p>\n

This particular night?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got an 8 piece ska band from Vancouver called The Hounds of Buskerville doing soundcheck. Nice guys. Horn section. Big \u201ccheckerboard Vans\u201d energy.<\/p>\n

Everything is normal.<\/p>\n

Which, if you\u2019ve ever worked in live music, is your first warning sign.<\/p>\n

The phone rings.<\/p>\n

I answer it.<\/p>\n

Guy says,<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, I\u2019m calling from John Ducey Field. We\u2019ve got the Trappers game here (Edmonton’ s baseball team) and it\u2019s about to get rained out.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

Okay. Weird start.<\/p>\n

Then he says:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a concert booked tonight\u2026 with Men At Work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes. That Men At Work.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s gift to cargo shorts and suspiciously upbeat existential dread.<\/p>\n

He goes,<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you have a gig going on tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

And I look around my 220-seat club.<\/p>\n

At the ska band. At the five paid customers leaning on the bar.<\/p>\n

At my own fragile sense of control.<\/p>\n

And I say,<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says,<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat. They\u2019ll be there in thirty minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty.<\/p>\n

Minutes.<\/p>\n

Before I can ask any follow-up questions ; like legality, physics, or possible expenses , I hear it.<\/p>\n

The stadium loudspeaker.<\/p>\n

Echoing across downtown Edmonton.<\/p>\n

(announcer voice)<\/p>\n

\u201cMEN AT WORK WILL BE PLAYING THE SIDETRACK CAF\u00c9 TONIGHT \u2026FOR FREE.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within ten minutes\u2026<\/p>\n

There are 5 hundred people in my 220-seat room.<\/p>\n

Five hundred.<\/p>\n

People. In August, in Edmonton\u00a0 .<\/p>\n

It got real sweaty, real fast.<\/p>\n

Fire-code-nightmare sweaty.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n

Like\u2026 the walls are damp and breathing sweaty.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing crowd math like,<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay\u2026 if everyone just agrees to exhale at the same time, we might survive this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, they show up.<\/p>\n

Smiling.<\/p>\n

Relaxed.<\/p>\n

Like this happens to them all the time.<\/p>\n

And somehow, against all logic, bylaws, and the will of the fire marshal \u2026.\u00a0 they absolutely destroy the place.<\/p>\n

Perfect sound.<\/p>\n

Huge energy.<\/p>\n

No ego.<\/p>\n

One minute it\u2019s soundcheck for a ska band.<\/p>\n

The next minute I\u2019m hosting an accidental, illegal-feeling , overcapacity international pop history moment.<\/p>\n

So it goes.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday August 16,2001, I was booking shows at this tiny club in Edmonton called the Sidetrack Caf\u00e9. Built on the bones of an old train station,\u00a0 with a full sized bright yellow caboose parked on the front lawn, \u201cthe Track\u201d was iconic. Two hundred and twenty seats. On a good night. KD Lang had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1228"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1909,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1228\/revisions\/1909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksvantage.com\/demos\/eli\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}