Saturday night.
The crowd was thick with nice looking women of all shapes, ages and ideas. They were at the bar specifically to see them play. It is always easier to perform in front of an appreciative audience.
So they played well and sounded good. The saxophone player, Larry, owned the night. The crowd was at his command, and their fate lay in every whimsical note his mood dictated. There was a song played without a saxophone solo and the people demanded one anyways. He could do no wrong.
A good friend from their hometown, Nate, had recently moved to the Portland area, and makes a grand entrance. Damon Castillo called him out on the microphone immediately, requesting his presence on stage to play guitar with the band. They performed a song that Nate and Damon’s twin brother Dominic had written together and the place was hopping. The dance floor ebbed and flowed, beautiful bodies waving like palm trees in a storm.
After wrapping up, the band conversed and drank with the bar and enjoyed their fleeting moments of faux-stardom before packing up the gear and loading the van. It is said that musicians play for free; it is the setting up and tearing down part that they are actually being paid for.
Goodbyes are exchanged and the crowd slowly dissipates. The band reluctantly retires to the stage to stow equipment in their respective cases. The great 3 dimensional game of Tetris is played and everything fits into the van. Last swoops of the stage, looking for potentially forgotten guitar stands or cables, and settling up the pay and bar tab, are made as the place is getting shut down. Everything done, everyone ready to go, and the van is finally full of musicians and equipment. The key turns in the ignition…… and nothing.
chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug.
Everyone’s a mechanic at times like this.
“Listen, it wouldn’t be the alternator cause it’s still going, strong battery too.”
“It’s not the starter, it’s getting juice.”
“Try it again, maybe it’ll catch.”
“Maybe it’s not getting enough fuel, like a fuel pump issue.”
“Yeah, it’s gotta be a fuel pump or something.”
The hood is popped and flashlights come out, as if they’re going to magically see a loose hose or something and just fasten it back and go on their merry way or something. Of course, the problem is not found or resolved, even with Kristian, the electrical engineer poking around. He’s the guy in the band who not only fixes just about everything, but tends to improve on the items that he works on.
The bartender locks up and says the obligatory, “That sucks, good luck guys,” and heads home for the night. Late night plans are hatched as to how to keep their valuable gear safe in a somewhat industrial area of Portland. To make matters worse, it’s Labor Day weekend and most mechanic shops won’t be open until Tuesday, and they have to play a show north of Seattle on Monday night. Plus, 5 guys wouldn’t fit in a typical tow truck and their hotel rooms are in Vancouver, WA, which is about 20 miles north of Portland.
It is decided to call their good friend Nate and have him drive them to his house and get the van towed to his much safer neighborhood.
It’s about 2:30 in the morning at this point and the amount of time the triple-A club makes them wait on hold is unbearable. Tempers are almost reaching breaking points, but are kept in check. The band maintains their cool surprisingly well under these circumstances.
The tow arrives and straps the van to the extended flat bed. It is an impressive sight. It makes one a little nervous watching over 10 grand worth of emotionally attached musical equipment bouncing around inside a van on the back of a flat bed truck going 50 mph over an old, rickety looking bridge.
They park the van in the slightly safer neighborhood that Nate lives in. He loans them his car to get back to their hotel rooms. The drive is sobering.
4 am arrival in Vancouver. Everyone is tragically awake at this point and watches television, formulating a plot for the following day. A late check out is a must. 2 p.m. ought to do. They have another extremely long day to look foreword to.
***
Nate, being the professional that he is, has his own 15 passenger van. He agrees to let them use his van to get to their next weeks worth of gigs. That way, they can get the van towed to the shop on Tuesday and be able to pick it up on our way home on the trip home next week. But there is one small problem. All of Nate’s worldly possessions are packed tightly into his van while he waits to move into a place of his own.
Nate is currently living in an interesting scenario; he sleeps on his ex-girlfriend’s couch while dating a girl across the way in the same apartment building. So the band will be postponing his potentially lethal woman drama by taking a van that works and leaving him with one that doesn’t.
It takes about an hour’s worth of serious sweat to swap stuff between vans. Both vans must be completely emptied and repacked. Never will you see more exhausted people than 5 guys who haven’t worked very hard for 5 weeks and then moving heavy objects for an hour and a half.
The tow truck straps up the van, now chock full of Nate’s entire materialist history, and takes it to the shop, to lock it up until Tuesday when its fuel pump can hopefully be replaced. Time for a drink.
The band heads over to Doug Fir, one of Portland’s premier music spots and lounge. It was quite possible the most comfortable lounge they’ve visited on this tour so far, and it was happy hour. It smacked of the seventies, mirrors everywhere, low comfortable seating, very private seating nooks and dim lighting. There was even a group of two couples that were dressed the part, like a bad episode of Three’s Company.
Two rounds of drinks and the best bar food they’ve ingested on a sober stomach. Just what the doctor ordered. And the time comes to hit the road. What an interesting time Portland has been.
