It's Not Easy Being Green

Been an interesting week. On Monday, my friend Stephen "Boag" O'Grady--a fine, soulful singer with a fine Irish name--emailed to ask me if I was interested in backing him up on guitar when he takes to the stage of the Lengendary Horseshoe Tavern to perform a few songs at the annual Martian Awareness Ball. The "Ball" is held every St. Patrick's Day, hosted by the one and only Mary Margaret O'Hara. For the past couple of Balls, Boag has hopped onstage to sing a few songs.

He told me he wanted to do Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey" and also Van's arrangement of "Tura-Lura-Lural (That's An Irish Lullaby)" from The Last Waltz. Short notice, but I went to work learning the songs. "Tupelo" is pretty straightforward, so I worked out some lead guitar riffs I could throw in, and the link on The Band's site gave me the chords to that arrangement of "Tura-Lura-Lural".

We met at the íShoe at about 9pm and found the little rehearsal room in the basement was unused, so we huddled to go through the tunes, joined by Boag's friend Tim, who had played guitar with Boag last year. We decided he'd play on our songs and we'd play on his selection, "She's A Mystery To Me" which Bono and The Edge had written for Roy Orbison.

We ran through the songs a couple of times and worked out what we were going to do. However, the more I play in public (and this is perhaps only the sixth or seventh time I've played on stage at a real music venue) the more I realize that I need to rehearse a lot so I can really internalize the songs, so I don't have to think about what I'm playing. Just play it, feel it, remain more open and aware of what's happening on the stage and with the other musicians. So I was quite nervous, because even though I knew how the songs went, I didn't really have them down as much as I would have liked. While waiting around for things to get started, I was running through the chords in my head, and thinking about the general approach I was planning for the riffs and solos. Plus it was rather intimidating to be playing the stage at the Horseshoe, a venerable live music venue, and perhaps the most famous stage for rock and roots music in Toronto, as well as being my favourite live music venue in the city. At the same time, I was also quite excited to be playing on the same stage that has seen The Rolling Stones, The Tragically Hip, The Police and countless others. So all of that is going through my head as we're watching the strange spectacle of The Kings (you know, of "Switching To Glide" fame?) run through their pre-Ball opening set of five or six songs. (Still not sure what to make of that, but they were a little too heavy with the "let's-get-the-crowd-going" schtick. Had the feeling of has-beens trying to rekindle their career. Of course, coming from a "never was" like me, maybe that's a bit harsh. They at least had one pretty good hit song. That's one more than I have.)

Now, the thing about the Martian Awareness Ball is that it tends to be a little chaotic. It is St. Patrick's Day afterall. And it is a fairly zany event. But on top of that, there is very little in the way of stage management. I met and chatted with Mary Margaret beforehand, and she seems very sweet, but she tends to just let things run of their own accord. So even after she called us to come to the stage, it was about another 40 minutes until we finally got up there. And we had no sound check, and very little direction about what to do, so as the guitarist for the house band was leaving the stage, I had to ask him where I could plug in my guitar and my pedal board. I had never dealt with a stage with monitors and all that, so I just plugged in and hoped everything sounded okay. It sounded fine on the stage. The house band played with us--drummer, bass player and keyboard player, all very good players, so I told them what songs we were going to do and what keys they were in, and off we went! We also had a very good sax player named Richard Underhill play with us. He had performed just before us, so Boag asked him to stay on and honk along. "Tupelo Honey" went all right, I think. As I said, I had to really concentrate on my playing, and I was fairly nervous, so I had "stage blinders" on; not really very aware of what was going on around me. Mary Margaret joined in with us, I do know that.

Next we backed Tim on his song, "She's A Mystery To Me", which went all right, as far as I could tell, except I think I forgot what the proper chords were for the bridge, so I had to just sort of fake my way through that part, chopping at damped strings. Then we did "Tura-Lura-Lural"... and that's where everything went off the rails.

I wasn't really very aware of what was transpiring, but talking to Boag and others afterwards, it seems that at some point, this guy who was sort of emceeing the night joined in at the other microphone, I think maybe rapping or doing some sort of spoken word ad libs. Apparently that wasn't too bad, but then some other guy got up onstage and started yapping about something and just causing a lot of chaos, throwing everybody off. The song came crashing to a halt in confusion and bewilderment. Boag had to tell the guy to knock it off, and I think it was at that point that I had to actually re-start the song. We went through another go-round and then we brought it all home with the big ending, where I decided to just give 'er and started chopping out the closing chords with, as they say, extreme prejudice. Actually busted my D string in the process, which being the 4th from the bottom and not one of the smaller strings, takes a bit of doing. Rock íní†roll, baby!

Overall, I can't say I felt very good about my performance, and the chaotic closing number left a bad taste in my mouth, so I just wanted to get the hell out of there. Plus by that point it was going on 12:30 and I had work the next day. So I just packed up my stuff as quickly as I could and scampered off. As I was gathering up my gear, Mary Margaret gave me a pat on the back and said "good job", or something. That was nice of her. Perhaps she was just being kind, I dunno. However, it probably wasn't as bad as I thought, and it was certainly a thrill to play the Horseshoe.

Maybe next year we'll work out something that'll really bring down the house--in a good way. And if I get enough rehearsal in, I'll be able to keep my wits about me, and be ready to swing my guitar at the head of any goof who tries to hijack our gig.