Wednesday, 10th May 2006 in Tours & Gigs, Canada & U.S. May 2006.
A long drive to Toronto today – at least 6 hours so up and off at the crack of 10am.
Mark had meant to go to Toronto early but realised we hadn’t sorted the van out so he waited to take some of our luggage. Great guy. All took turns driving – Neil getting us out of Montreal and me doing the last – getting into Toronto- stint, aided and abetted by Tom who practised a spot of back seat driving which infuriated the by now tetchy and irritable me. Realised we were all getting irritable – understandably, but felt unreasonably angry. Then met Mark’s wife Ellen and after a bit of girl talk realised that after the enormous task of organising this tour, what I needed was a spot of female company. Males and females are different – did you know that? Of course you did – its just that what with all this ‘we’re all in together’ sort of psuedopsycolological codswallop that’s around, you get to feel that maybe the we should all be the same. Mo This gig was different from the moment we arrived. It was a Concert Hall –The St Lawrence Centre For The Arts -with proper dressing rooms and a spacious green room with sofas, tea, coffee and a thai meal provided by Mark and Ellen. The sound check was quick and efficient- with a good balance. The merchandising area was in a well lit foyer – the house manager couldn’t do enough. From the moment the doors opened you could feel the difference. A huge number of fans walked straight in and bought the tee shirts and the CDs and were so happy that Neil had at last come to Toronto. From the moment Neil walked onto the stage the audience were right with him – latching on to every word, getting every joke and joining in with every request to do so. What a spirit lifter.
Neil stayed on for about an hour and a half talking to fans, while Tom JJ and Mark, his son Adam, and I worked like crazy to get the gear out of the dressing rooms and off the stage in under an hour. There is a union curfew of one hour or four hours and you have to pay for the extra time. All done, then back to hotel feeling a huge lot better than we did earlier in the day.