Between The Rock And A Hard Place: Newfoundland, Great Big Sea, Alan Doyle, And Even Russell Crowe

"The Warming Of The Sun" - New & Timely Words From Alan Doyle...Plus, Alan Performs With The Priests

ETA: So much for not doing ETAs...the reviews have come in of Alan's performance with the priests during last night's The Holy Show at Holy Heart Auditorium here in St. John's. This from someone lucky enough to attend a show that was sold out weeks in advance, describing how Alan did when he joined the performing priests on stage for a number: He was wonderful.

Even if it meant that some of the rest of us who would have dearly loved to see Alan Doyle being wonderful with a troupe of performing priests were not able to, what matters the most is that sold-out-weeks-and-weeks ago crowd meant a very good donation would be coming to the much-deserving  Daffodil Place project. Alan's on the committee that's raising the funds needed to build this facility that will give rural Newfoundlanders a place to stay - "a place to call home" - in St. John's while they are receiving cancer treatment.

A few photos and words about The Holy Show & Alan Doyle

I would have loved to have seen Alan with the priests, but it isn't as if I didn't already know that Alan Doyle is wonderful. 

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This started out as an ETA on the preceding entry, but then I recalled getting squawked at by those who subscribe to the blog's feed when I do substantial ETAs. This grew more and more substantial as I read and thought about Alan's latest piece, so now it's an entry in and of itself.

At long last, there's a new journal entry from Alan. In this latest entry, he writes about the rest of Great Big Sea's European adventure; the piece covers a lot of ground - literally and figuratively - and reads a bit hurried, but it is very good to hear his voice, regardless.  Proof positive that on occasion, timing can indeed be most excellent. It now looks as if I'll have to venture on to writing about the Borderline show, though I still might go back and do Loch Ness first, once I finish up work on the video files. Still depends on the weather as well; I have one more week here in St. John's, and if the good weather holds (today looks a bit dubious), I might not be inside all that much. Once I head back, I can count on both the rain and on getting work done.

For now, a few responses to some well-written words...

GBS played Exeter in the early 90’s on a Government funded tour called “Tip of the Iceberg”, featuring four bands from Newfoundland showcasing the Province’s talent.  I remember one particular little square near the Cathedral that was lined with lovely Tudor(??? I have no clue about architecture) buildings that look hundreds of years old.  I wanted to show Kris this corner as he had never really seen the English countryside and this was a postcard opportunity.  Of course I had no idea where to look for this corner and could not even call it or the Cathedral by name to ask directions.  Might be in store for a wandering wild goose chase in search of a distant memory.  To make a long story short, we walked out of the hotel, turned right, saw the Cathedral, walked up one street in that direction and found ourselves in the exact spot I remembered from over a decade ago.  Tourist mission accomplished in less than ten minutes.  Off to the pub, guilt free.

As another card-carrying member of the Hopelessly & Perpetually Directionally-Impaired Club, I've had that same thing happen to me only a few times, each time with places that had made a very strong impression on me the first time I was there, leaving a memory more compelling than it was distant. Perhaps those who always know exactly where they've been and where they are now don't realise just how cool it does feel when those of us who so rarely know the same manage to find our ways back again. I've been so impressed by how that experience feels that I made it a central metaphor in a story once, a matter of finding the way back to my main character's heart's desire.

We made our way to a place called the Angel, as it was recommended by the hotel staff.  Over the course of the next few hours, we four discussed several ways to cure world hunger, dominate the music business for decades to come, and get the attractive waitress to leave her home, family, and life in general to move in with Murray.  Normal dandy chat at the pub before giving it up for the night.

That sounds like a very good night at the pub, a night when they could all be themselves and enjoy the luxury of an uninterrupted conversation - perhaps more a of normal dandy chat at home than it often is on the road.

We jumped the train for London in the AM and made it to the Hotel on Russell Square in downtown London.  I’d never been to this section of the city which is dominated by the massive British Museum.  I have always jokingly begrudged the British Museum as it proudly holds and displays treasures from each of the cultures once conquered the British Empire.  In the heart of downtown London, in this museum, you can blow the dust off rare and precious icons from Pakistan, India, Australia, and even Newfoundland.  These artifacts are so far from their true homes that you would want to run through the halls screaming, “GIVE IT BACK!!!”

I must confess to sharing Alan's reaction to the British Museum. It was my first time there and I found it perturbing, the whole flagrant "Spoils of Empire" approach distinctly disturbing, even a bit overwhelming. I very nearly lost it in the midst of the crowds swarming the Egyptian section. Watching fool tourists grinning vacuously and cluelessly for photo op after photo op while they strike self-conscious poses in front of the priceless treasures of distant cultures was a troubling sight.

On the other hand, no way to know how many of those priceless treasures might have been ground down to the dust that blows on the winds of change if they had not been preserved by the Conquerors. Hard to say. Where Stonehenge had intrigued me with its essential remoteness - its back turned toward the gawkers of the present, its gaze fixed inward to a time far removed from the here and now - the British Museum felt more like past triumphs turned hollow by the inexorable passage of time. My first visit to the British Museum left me pondering Ages and Empires yet to come, wondering in which yet-to-be-built Conquerors' Museum the Crown Jewels themselves might one day be found on display, and just who it might be standing in front of that display posing for foolish "I-was-here" trophy photos.

I walked out of that place muttering lines from Shelley's "Ozymandias". The lone and level sands stretch far away. For the rest, look it up, as Alan is fond of saying.

Still, even if the British Museum did have the Rosetta Stone on garish dispay in the entryway like a cheap tart on a dodgy street corner, being able to see it was amazing. And the Elgin Marbles were breath-taking, regardless of their not at all belonging where they presently are. All I could feel for Cleopatra was pity, though. She deserves a far better resting place.

England was certainly an interesting place, I must say. No scarcity of thought-provoking Reality to be found there, either.

The gig at the Borderline was hot and sweaty.  Been a while since we had a steamy pub gig, so I was very glad to rock hard in the London night.

What Alan said. "Steamy" in every sense of the word. Same for "rock hard". Though "very glad" is a bit of an understatement. Photographic evidence to come, eventually.

The following day was a free day and a few of us, including my brother Bernie, who joined us over night, went to see ‘Spamalot’ in the West End.  Can’t say that I loved the show.  Cool nostalgia for Python fans, but I hang around with singers, actors and comedians.  They re-enact Python regularly, and less predictably than this show.  Of course it won a zillion Tony Awards and is loved in many cities where it runs, so what do I know?

Alan and Bernie should have done what we did and chosen to see The Lion King instead. That was a cool production, timely and pertinent as well. We briefly considered going to Spamalot, but then chose in favour of the Frigging Lion King. Not only do I associate with my own Python-spouting crew of characters, but I was also lucky enough to see Monty Python perform live long ago and far away; after that experience, most other Pythonesque attempts tend to pale in comparison.

We blasted off to Hamburg and drove to the Tonder Festival.  What can I say about this festival that I have not said before?  It very well might be the best Folk Festival on Earth.  We had a great time with Runrig, Danu, and loved watching Liam Clancy in the Old Mill.  We dined exclusively on Ristet Hotdogs and drank way to much Gammeldansk.  Look them up.

I've got all kinds of things I can (and will) be saying about the Tønder Festival that I haven't said before, especially since this Tønder Festival was absolutely wonderful and the only other one I have been to so far sucked mightily, and not in the good way. Although I am still keeping a wary distance from Gammeldansk; girly little lightweight drinker that I am, I did not venture beyond Tuborg Classic this time around, for fear of winding up misbehaving quite badly as an inevitable result of such indulgence. Perhaps next time I'll be so bold as to broaden my horizons. I did eat more than my share of polsemix at Tønder, though, sliced sausages served up with fried potatoes and onions, all of it slathered with some sort of delectable sauce, at that awesomely efficient open-air Festival restaurant.

Gammeldansk. No wonder they all looked a bit worse for the wear out in front of the Tønderhus on Sunday afternoon.

Whew.  Grand run through a few European countries. 

Europe was wonderful. Great Big Sea was wonderful in Europe; it felt like getting a glimpse of GBS As They Could Be. Alan was wonderful in Europe too, but since I tend to think Alan is wonderful anywhere and everywhere, and because "even more wonderful" is arguably as questionable as is "even more unique," I guess that last part could have gone without saying...then again, it seems a bit of a shame not to say You were wonderful whenever that thought comes to mind.



Home for a rest.

It really was great hearing from Alan, and appreciated very much - always appreciated, each and every time. I'd love to believe it won't be a long time until it happens again.

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"Where Is Thy Sting?" - Discordant Harmony & Newfoundland Reality, With Antelope

Today was a rough day. It started off with one of those painful dreams that many people who've lost a loved one have experienced, the kind of dream in which the person you've lost is present and alive in your subconscious, much to your delight, but a part of your conscious mind is aware that this is nothing more than a dream. That awareness makes you want to cling the dream for as long as you possibly can, because you know that when you awaken, your loved one will be lost to you all over again. The awakening is inevitable, as is the subsequent heartache.

So I woke up sad, resigned and accepting but still sad. Maybe others are better than I am at shaking off the memory of such dreams; what usually happens to me is that the ache continues and I spend most of the following day with a tender heart, customary defenses mostly if not completely worthless for the duration. And as is so often the case with unfortunate timing, while those defenses were down today someone caught me by surprise with a bit of petty cruelty, a wholly unecessary act that on some other day I might have just rolled my eyes and shaken my head in response to. On this day, it cut to the bone.

I did what I usually do in such cases - spent much of the rest of the afternoon telling myself that I was hurt this badly only because of the earlier dream, and that no matter how miserable it felt now, that hurt would surely pass in time  Continuing along in the attempt at seeing things sensibly, I chided myself for setting up exactly this kind of disappointment.  Petty and cruel are so much more to be expected than are generous and kind; more fool me for letting hope outpace reason.

Then I reminded myself that what I've been working on so intently and dilgently these past few days - I've been going through all of my video files, verifying them and backing them up, which in some cases has meant watching videos I have not seen in quite some time - has left me with a heart wide open to memories both wonderful and terrible, likely to be at least one of the causes of the distressing dream in the first place. One of the last video files I'd verified right before going to sleep last night was the Old Brown's Daughter clip from the 2006 Vancouver show the day of the bus accident; watching it more than a year and a half later I found myself blinking back tears still, all the memories of that day rushing back in an instant - shock, fear, helplessness...and finally a piercing feeling of deeply grateful relief that is apparently permanent. I am not sure how much else might have changed permanently on that day, but one thing I do know for sure is that I did.

Good effort all around, but none of these coping tactics was helping very much this time around, so I resorted to another familiar tactic: I walked. And walked and walked and walked. If nothing else, getting outside and walking is an effective underscore to the realisation that there's more going on in the world than whatever it is that's just taken a piece out of your heart. Perspective might not heal a wound, but it does lessen the pain a bit.

Still not enough though, not this time. I was angry, and there is no more sure sign that I've been hurt than my being angry. It's really the only version of being pissed that I do at all well. Do something stupid that doesn't hurt me, I'll most likely shrug. To get angry, I have to care and I have to be hurt.

Walking down Duckworth, I was some pissed. So I knew for sure that I was even more hurt, just hiding that hurt away behind the anger for the present moment. And since I can never stay pissed for very long, that meant it was going to be sooner rather than later when all that hurt was going to come rushing in like a storm surge at high tide. There was no running away from it, either, no "Well, I'll just pack my bag and be done with this shit" to be said, not anymore. That's another thing that's changed permanently...this admitted with a lingering remnant of chagrin and a somewhat larger portion of wonder.

Since nothing I could think of was making things any better, there seemed nothing else to do but let it run its course, endurance as the only viable option, with perhaps just a bit of bitching for pressure relief. We'd planned to go out to see Con O'Brien perform tonight; there was no reason not to go ahead and stick to that plan. I like Con O'Btien and had been trying to catch one of his regular solo gigs at a local pub for a few weeks, but the schedule never seemed to work out for one reason or another. No sense letting a little thing like a battered heart get in the way on this night.

So off we went, and what we found there was a quintessentially Newfoundland time, which is to say it was sweet and touching and funny and odd and painful. And illuminating, always and inescapably illuminating. It was more illuminating than I was in the mood for anything to be tonight. One of the most inexplicable mysteries of the last six years of my life is why it is that so many people come to Newfoundland looking for - and apparently finding - an escape from reality, while for me Newfoundland is the place where reality beckons, embraces, announces, demands, insists, and even crashes into my head whenever I become inattentive.

I was not inattentive tonight. This local pub is likely a great place to go if you are a bonafide tourist in Newfoundland; it is for sure a great place to go if you are someone who is fascinated by the relationship between Newfoundland and the tourists she draws. Along with being even more invested in puzzling out the similarities to the relationship between Great Big Sea and the fans they draw.

From the Town Cryer twit who told a pathetic "There was a Newfoundlander and a Japanese man..." joke that wound up being racist in an unexpected manner, to the flamingly gay dancer who told an even more pathetic joke about being an amateur gynecologist (had to bite my tongue hard to keep from suggesting a switch to proctology), to the camera-happy pub crawl bunch who struggled to clap in jig time, to the mordantly barbed comments flying clean over CFA heads left and right (Newfoundland antelope herds applauding the singing of Cape St. Mary's, indeed)...all of this playing out as discordantly harmonious accompaniment to beautiful songs such as Pat Murphy's Meadow, Caledonia, Sonny's Dream, Atlantic Blue, and (best of all) Not For The Money Alone, each song song sung with poignant resonance...last night was a perfectly apportioned slice of Newfoundland Reality.

Walking back afterwards, I was still feeling angry and hurt, wounded and disappointed. I feel that way now. But it's only a part of what I feel, only a part of what's real. The rest of what is real is understanding - including an understanding of that which is hurtful and harmful and self-defeating - and love. As discordantly harmonious a mixture as is to be found here in this place.

I love this place. If that's said sometimes with a smile and sometimes with a sigh, sometimes as a shout of delight and sometimes as a cry of pain - it's still equally true each and every time. Equally real, equally accepted, equally embraced.

Now it's time to accept and embrace whatever dreams come in the night.

"With Courage In Love And War" - One Man, One View...And An Uncharacteristically Speechless Writer...Plus A Quick Note About GBS Videos

***Editing in a quick note about video download links: I've been working on trying to get some more video files uploaded and linked here, and there are now new ones to be found over in the righthand column of the blog page. I've gotten the European videos up finally, and I have corrected the trouble with the link to that wonderful Borderline singalongs video, which would be worth every single MB for the Sweet Dreams segment alone.

Some new non-GBS video links (primarily of Bruce Guthro at his Tønder Sonwgriters' Circle gig) can be found by scrolling down to the Other Artists section in that same column. I'm hoping to get all the 2007 videos up and linked before I have to part ways with the high-speed connection here. With enough time, inclination and stubbornness, I might even get some of The Hard & The Easy Tour video links from 2006 up.  Someday not-so-soon, I'll get all the re-organising done too.***

And now back to magnificent views of most-favourite songwriters...

I'm heading out in a few minutes to go see my second-favourite songwriter - in and out of Newfoundland - perform, but before leaving, here's one magnificent view of my most-favourite songwriter. In and out of Newfoundland.

Alan Doyle

This picture itself comes from quite a ways out of Newfoundland: It's from Runrig's Beat The Drum Festival at Loch Ness, taken during the second song of the set, right after hearing the roar of nearly 20,000 people cheering enthusiastically at the end of GBS's set-opening Process Man. Those thundering cheers sounded so wonderful. They sounded almost as wonderful as Alan's smile looks. Almost. The sound and the sight together were unforgettable.

I decided to discreetly wait a bit longer to see if Alan would like the first go at writing about the Borderline show and so went back to the Loch Ness photos. I'd just begun editing them, thinking to put them up and instead write about that show next. But by the time I got a final edit of this photo, I was feeling quite uncharacteristically speechless. And more than a bit weak in the knees.

The rest to come, eventually.

"Heaven On Earth Will Have To Do," Part Five - Beautiful Man, Beautiful Day & The Proper Place For A Love Affair...Also, Young Triffie (and Alan Doyle's film score) Is Now Out On DVD, Plus An Interview With Alan About His Work With Russell Crowe

One final quick edit, another bit of good news to add in along with the great big good news about the Young Triffie DVD now being available: Thanks to Russell Crowe fans vsecin and Darrin at Constant Crowe, here's a download link to a CBC video clip of an interview with Alan from back in April of 2005, an interview I sure don't think I've seen  before - I'd remember Alan in his lovely leather jacket if I had seen this piece before, not to mention recalling CBC's use of the Leather Pants Clip from the St. John's ECMA show.

Alan Doyle, CBC interview about Russell Crowe collaboration, April 2005   (Real Player format, 6 MB)

In this piece, Alan describes his initial conversation with Russell - taking place backstage right after the 2004 GBS Molson Amphitheatre show - about the two of them writing some tunes together (The Rock Star Meets The Gladiator). Can't say I agree with the opinon that the songs that wound up on the My Hand, My Heart CD sound all that much like GBS songs, though. From the first time I heard Alan sing Weight Of A Man during the 2004 Juno Songwriters' Circle in Winnipeg and each time thereafter, whenever I have heard the music Russell and Alan wrote together, those MHMH songs have always sounded like Alan Doyle tunes to me. Alan Doyle and Russell Crowe tunes, that is.

The final question asked during this 2005 interview remains pertinent today. I'm still hoping for that long-term collaboration between Alan Doyle and Russell Crowe, mutually crazy schedules notwithstanding. Jacksonville would be a good next step come January. Iceland would be a wonderful step to take after that come summer. A second collaborative Russell Crowe/Alan Doyle/The Ordinary Fear Of God CD would be the best step of all. That, and finding myself  Breathless and Weak In The Knees once again - no matter what shape the stars I might find myself under, and even if I do get chided and admonished over the expense of the venture. Some costs are well worth paying, given the priceless value of return on the investment.   

Now I am off to watch - and listen to - Young Triffie another time or two, before heading to tonight's Bruins/Islanders exhibition game at Mile One.  I really do love this place. 

ETA some wonderful news: Young Triffie, the excellent Mary-Walsh-directed film that features an equally excellent score co-written by Alan Doyle (along with Keith Power) - a score which includes the movingly eloquent title song, also written by Alan and performed by Great Big Sea - is now available on DVD. The Young Triffie DVD can be ordered from HMV and Amazon.ca.

Young Triffie is also available for direct purchase from the HMV store at the Avalon Mall, or at least one copy of the DVD will still be there after we head directly out just as soon as I post this and buy our own two of the three copies of Young Triffe the Avalon HMV is presently carrying. WooHoo!

Back to the regularly scheduled programming...

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I did say "Beautiful Man" in the title for this entry, so I might as well begin with just that - begin with just him, that is - though there's even more beauty to be seen a bit farther down in the full-size versions. And the heaven-on-earth belly glmpse can be found down there too, on the other side of the words.

 

   

(Two closeups of Alan Doyle from Excursion, five from Fortune, and one Lingering Final Farewell shot, all from the recent Great Big Sea performance at the Beautiful Days Festival in the UK .)

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Then again, I also mentiioned the proper place for love affairs - specifically in this instance, a love affair of place - in my title for this entry. I suppose I could write a bit about that next, while the rest of the photos from the Beautiful Days Festival load down below.

Perhaps the best place to start would be with a recent telephone conversation, a conversation that gives clear enough evidence of how fortunate I am in such matters as acceptance and understanding:

Me: I've found a reasonably cheap flight back from St. John's to Seattle, but I need to know if you can pick me up when it gets in at 2 pm.

Him: What day?

Me: Either the 25th or the 26th.

Him: What month?

I love this place. The first few steps outside the airport terminal, caressed by breeze or buffetted by gale, warmed by sunshine or treading lightly across sheets of ice, I discover the same lump that was in my throat when I last left here and feel the familiar sting of still-unshed tears, the coming and the going and the coming again blending together in heart and memory and mind, a sweetly poignant pain of loss and gain.

I love this place. Not with a love that idealises or fantasises; there is no Paradise, no Promised Land, no El Dorado and no Utopia to be found here in this place so far removed from misguided wishes of escaping either the wonder or the terror of unyielding reality. As much as I have loved this place when it has delighted me, inspired me, comforted me, and touched me, I have loved this place just as deeply and as well when it has confounded me, saddened me, angered me, and injured me. The laughter of a child and the tears of a friend, confidence shared and trust embattled, stubborn resolve and reluctant capitulation, discovery and disappointment and the keen edge of desire. Hope and despair and hope again, each following after the other like sunshine chasing storm.

I love this place. It is not my home, although it has its place beside that home in my heart, a divisible heart which is capable of loving not just once but twice with a love neither lessened nor diminished by that duality. Instead, it's a love of each that increases the capacity for loving both, a love which encourages that heart to grow bigger and stronger, teaching that heart to love with more passion and depth.

I love this place. Home is the place of assurance that precludes decision, the embrace of family, a love that is because it has always been. For me, this is the place of choice, a portion of the heart handed over consciously and deliberately, hesitation and confusion steadily giving way to a sweet surrender to acknowledgement and acceptance.

I love this place. I will count myself fortunate and be thankful for what time I have here, each time I am here. Each time I leave here, I will recall the delight of coming again. It might not be Cloud 9, but Heaven On Earth is wonderful enough for me.

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I realised belatedly that I'd neglected to tell the backstory of the Beautiful Days Festival. I found out about GBS playing this festival right about the same time the news came out that they'd been added to the bill for Runrig's Beat The Drum Festival at Loch Ness. We knew we were going to Loch Ness, so when the Beautiful Days news came out, I never even stopped to think about it...I bought the tickets.

I bought the Beautiful Days tickets so fast, I hadn't taken the time to figure out the current exchange rate for British pounds. When I did figure it out, I was mildly appalled, but consoled myself with thoughts of this being a three-day festival. I still wasn't taking the time to figure out the schedule. By the time I finally got around to that detail, I realised that GBS was playing on the third and final day of the Beautiful Days Festival and Loch Ness was the day before. Maybe we could go to Beautiful Days for the first day, then go to Loch Ness, then come back to Beautiful Days, I thought, as geographically impaired as ever. Eventually, I looked at a map and the lesson for the day was just how frigging far it actually is from Loch Ness to Exeter.

We weren't at all sure if it could be done, let alone how it could be done. It was a ridiculously long haul for a driver who'd be on only her third day of getting used to driving on the left side of the road (and I was totally useless, since I suck at driving on the right side of the road). We looked at flying from Inverness to Exeter, but there was no way to get a rental car there on a Sunday and we still needed to get from the airport to the festival grounds in Ottery-St.-Mary and back out again afterwards. And we were wondering just how tired we might be by the time the Runrig show wrapped up the night before.

We toyed with the idea of skipping Beautiful Days, especially when the fesival sold out and we knew we could easily re-sell those costly tickets. Then we hit another snag...the festival organisers decided they didn't want to mail tickets to purchasers outside of the UK. We were told we could pick up our tickets at the festival will-call, which made it next to impossible even to consider selling those tickets to anyone else.

We figured out a way it could be done, maybe. If we flew out first thing in the morning from Inverness back to London, then picked up a rental car and drove straight to Ottery-St.-Mary, we might be able to get there in time, depending on when GBS was going to go on stage, a vital piece of information that no one seemed willing or able to share. If they took the stage fairly late in the afternoon, if we were at the Inverness airport at the crack of dawn to catch the first flight out to London, if that flight wasn't delayed, if we got the rental car quickly and didn't run into any traffic problems heading south out of London, if we didn't get lost somewhere along the way...we might catch their show.

Or we might not. We talked again about skipping Beautiful Days, even if it meant eating the cost of those non-resellable tickets waiting for us to pick them up. We finally decided we would rather try our best to get there and deal with missing it if anything went wrong along our way. Thank God we had no idea at the time how challenging Loch Ness would wind up being, because once Alan charged out onto Beat The Drum's big stage with that delighted grin on his face, the option of foregoing the attempt to make it to Beautiful Days never once crossed my mind again, not even after all the hours of rain and mud and the car being stuck and sleeping in the car while still wearing the soaking wet clothes. One brilliant smile had sufficed to make the decision for me.

So while GBS slipped away from the soggy environs of the Beat The Drum Festival right after their set ended, we stayed in the rain to see Runrig, wallowed in the mud trying to get out, took our nap in the Rental Car Return Lane at the not-yet-open Inverness airport, then finally got in at 5 am when it opened, just enough time to clean up and catch our flight to London's Gatwick airport. We picked up the rental car, and off we went, heading south and west, Christina driving on the left side of the road and me giving the directions. That we made our way to the intended destination amazes no one more than it amazes us.

The closer we got to the festival grounds, the more anxious we became. We still didn't know what time GBS was scheduled to take the stage, and to make it all the way there only to miss them by moments was certainly not the desired outcome. We fumbled around a bit picking up the tickets at will-call and then finding our assigned parking area, delays that were not lessening the tension. We found ourselves wading through another sea of mud toward the venue - the Big Top tent, fine with us being indoors in any shape or form, including a multiple-mammaries pink tent - and when we finally arrived in the right place, we discovered we had made it there some 90 minutes before GBS was due on stage. And there was much rejoicing.

I went out in search of food and drink and to have a bit of a wander among the gaudily dressed and blithely-unperturbed-by-mud festival goers, a careful wander given how bloody precarious the footing was in some places. Along one particularly treacherous incline, I stayed upright only by holding onto a series of cheerfully accommodating fellows, one after the other, as I made my way gingerly down the slippery slope. In another spot, I got completely stuck for a few moments, one foot sliding off to the right and the other foot to the left, reluctant to move either one for fear of winding up on my arse in the goop. Then I noticed a woman a few meters away from me, caught in the exact same predicament, each of us slowly and carefully extricating herself.

Much to my dismay, I realised I was gooing to have to make a pit stop at the portalets. Even under ideal circumstances, the condition of the toilets on the last day of any festival is usually pretty awful. These were not ideal circumstances. Three days of high traffic had made the area in front of facilities nearly impassible, and the conditions inside those facilities were well on their way to totally impossible. I found myself hoping that festival performers would have access to facilities in an area of lower traffic.

After nearly but not quite landing on my face on the way out of that high-traffic area, I managed to make a complete circuit of the festival grounds, wide-eyed and full of wonder at all I saw there, as well as getting my hands on the last two Cumberland sausages to be found anywhere on festival grounds. The Guinness had long since run dry, so I stuck a can of Stella in my pocket, got a firm grip on the sausages, and made my way back to the pink tent with painstaking care, lamenting my lack of appropriate footwear with each and every step-slide-slide, step-slide-slide. It was all fascinating, in a Fundamentally Cracked sort of way; I was glad to have made it there and even more glad to be seeing GBS there, though I'd already begun to worry about what kind of crowd might show up for their set. More and more, Beautiful Days was feeling like an alternate reality, a place far and away from what I am used to GBS shows.

As I wrote in the prior entry here, all of that worry was for naught. There are times when an alternate reality is a great place to be, and this day was one of those times. Their show went better than I could have possibly imagined or predicted - an outcome they made happen for themselves by playing their show with such a seductively bold edge - and one thought that kept running through my head all through this show (right along with %&@# you, you %&@#ing camera) was how great it was that we had made it to this show, how much this show was worth every bit of effort it had taken to be there to see it.

Some of what made this such a memorable GBS show - some of the bold edge that made this show such a success with the Beautiful Days crowd - can be seen in the photos below, despite all of the troubles I wound up having with not one but two waterlogged cameras, a bit of an object lesson for there being some things which, as well as some people who, shine so brightly that their light can be seen even in the most challenging of times. By the time GBS's last song had ended, as their crew was tearing down and packing up and they, as well as we, were getting ready to leave this festival, I was sure that I understood what was important and significant about this day, sure that all that could possibly touch my heart and make me happy on this day had already taken place.

As is so often the case, I was mistaken, and very gladly so. As eye-opening and thought-provoking as this show had been, as much fun as this show had been filled with, as much success in the present moment and as much portent of future possibilities as this show had possessed, as much as all that was good and enjoyable about this show had made every bit of the hard work getting there so very much worth it...those sweet fleeting moments after this show would have made - did make - a far greater measure of hard work in past, present, and future even more worth it.

But what I actually have photos of - still somewhat sketchy photos because of the moisture, but not so sketchy as to utterly blur such beautfy - is what took place during the show, a special show on a special day. A beautiful day.

The General Taylor Hush fell swift upon this crowd, those who had obviously never heard the song before - more to the point, those who had never heard Sean and the rest of GBS performing this song before - standing more and more still as the singers' voices rang out, eyes rivetted first on Sean, then darting to each performer in turn as the harmonies soared, supported by Murray's rumbling bass. From curiousity to surprise to wonder to awe...I love being in the midst of a crowd where many are hearing GBS's General Taylor for the first time. I've missed that too.

Scolding Wife. By now, Camera #2 is showing signs of heading out to join #1 at the sauna, frustrating as all get-out because of how charmingly this song was being played.

From this point on for a few songs - all the way through Ordinary Day at the end of the main set - this was as much as the camera was capable of. Underwater photography, as it were. The men on stage were being considerably more capable. They went through their usual set-closers at a furious pace, not giving the just-conquered in their crowd so much as a moment to catch their breath before plunging headlong into the next opportunity for shouting out in delight.  I kept alternating between being excited by what I was seeing and being pissed off because my camera was seeing something else altogether.

I'd like to pretend that I understood what was going on with the camera and knew exactly what to do to make it better, but the truth is I was just too stubborn to give up. So I  kept trying to get a decent photo, and eventually all those determined attempts created enough heat to begin the evaporative process, though slowly. By the time they began Excursion, the camera was beginning to see nearly as gorgeous of a man as I was seeing.

And by the time Alan got to waggling a beguiling finger, the beauty was fully exposed to the eyes of both beholders, human and mechanical.

I love Excursion, have since the very first time I ever heard GBS perform it live. It's a great tune, enjoyable no matter who is singing it. But I must confess that a considerable part of the pleasure I take from Excursion comes from how much I enjoy the non-guitar-impeded view of Alan, even more because of how much I enjoy the sight of hin pumping his fists up in the air. He looks good with his fists up in the air; he looks good and he looks sexy. The position suits him, simultaneously enhancing and revealing, as is alluringly apparent in the last shot from this song.

Fuschia Bob, compliments of a tweaky camera and some rather odd lighting.

Fortune, closing out the performance with a fierce crescendo of energy, and also with an absorbing tale told by the most articulate face I have ever seen.

 

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I'm still vacillating about what to do next. I kind of want to write about the Borderline show next, but I keep hoping Alan will write about it before I do. There's something I'd really like to say about that show, but I'm a bit reluctant to say it until after I read how Alan writes about it. So I don't know. Maybe he'll write his next journal entry soon, or maybe I'll be bold and daring even if he doesn't. Or maybe I'll go back to words and pictures about Loch Ness while waiting for him to write again.

Whatever winds up coming next, one thing I know for sure: I'll spend as much time as I have here loving this place...most especially so during the Bruins/Islanders exhibition game at Mile One tomorrow night. Talk about being easy to love.

"Heaven On Earth Will Have To Do" Part Four - Difficult-But-Lovely Photos And Men: Defining A Beautiful Day

Two versions of one special photo of an even-more-special man from the Beautiful Days Festival.

That's the face I believe the whole world should love. Not even a waterlogged camera can keep all that's wonderful about that face from shining through.

Even though I've got some spectacular photos from Loch Ness and Tønder, as well as some really nice ones from the Borderline in London - even some quite good photos from the Glacier show here in St. John's - for some reason, I keep finding myself drawn to the difficult loveliness of the Beautiful Days Festival shots, where I struggled, getting totally pissed off while so doing, to get decent pictures with not one but two cameras which had gotten totally waterlogged the day before in the deluge at Loch Ness that was the Beat The Drum Festival.

Part of what made me come so unglued about the subsequent camera malfunctions the next afternoon at Beautiful Days - well, in addition to my momentary shudder over how much it would likely cost to repair or replace a camera in the UK, or, God forbid, in Denmark - was how much I wanted to get a picture of what Alan looked like at this show. At a show taking place in a pink tent perched in the middle of a muddy pasture somewhere off a rural byway in the West Country of England, a show where maybe a dozen out of the hundreds of audience members had ever heard of Great Big Sea...Alan Doyle looked like Hope. 

I'd seen a glmpse of that Hope already the day before at Drumnadrochit, shining in Alan's eyes as he watched thousands of the wet and the weary come alive at his command, but it was blazing even more brightly in the shadowy confines of that silly pink tent. Alan looked gorgeous, excited, sexy, assured, most of all, happy. And there I was, my camera going totally loopy in my hands.

I had been so worried before GBS took this stage. I'd watched the crowd that was there for the screamo-rock act that was playing when we first got to the festival, and then saw the tent fill up to capacity for the next act, Bill Bailey, a comedian with a rapier-sharp wit, the single-most-requested act of the Beautiful Days Festival finally playing to his devoted horde of parody-loving would-be cynics, all of them ready to laugh at whatever eminently suitable targets Bailey held up for their derision. So not a typical GBS crowd, I'd thought.

As Bailey's act progressed and I saw that crowd's apprehension of and appreciation for keen humour that was subtle and intelligent, along with being scathingly satiric - all of it aimed at "the other." all of it playing to a fundamental "We're above all that kind of shit" attitude of coolness - they were so far removed from that typical GBS crowd that I began actively hoping that most of the people there for Bailey's show would piss off and go away before GBS came on.

It was a perfectly appropriate crowd for who the men of GBS are - sharp-witted and perceptive, brains fully engaged and blessed with wicked senses of humour - but I couldn't see how GBS usually plays their shows - the schtick of GBS, as it were - going over very well with this bunch. I couldn't see GBS's customary role of Self-Deprecating Cheerfully Carefree Party Band playing successfully to this house. Bad enough to have to follow the single-most-requested act of the festival, far worse if you are thought to suck when you do.

Bailey wrapped up his act and left, and so did some of his most fervent followers, most of the ones who had been up front with us, singing along with him word-for-word during his hilarious parody tunes. Others a bit farther back remained, some of them clearly Bailey fans and others looking more like people who weren't inclined toward leaving a comfortable spot and venturing back out into the mudpit. Alan thinks there were around a thousand for GBS's set and my original estimate was 300; perhaps more people were drawn in by what they heard during GBS's set than I realised and the tent got considerably more full as the show went on. I know what was being played on that stage would have drawn me inside.

The handful of GBS fans who'd been lurking around the sides during the earlier acts came up front and took their places along the barrier as GBS's set-up crew worked. Now I was worried about what kind of fools they might wind up acting like during the show, especially when Buddy from Ontario perched a sou'wester on his head and smiled an idiot's grin. What I was thinking must have shown on my face; Buddy took one look at me and then quickly took off the hat, kept it off during the show too, I think. I felt a little bad about that, but only fleetingly so because I was too busy repeating please don't open with Donkey Riding...please don't open with Donkey Riding...please don't open with Donkey Riding in my mind, part mantra and part supplication, to pay much attention to now-hatless Buddy.

All of that worry, and none of it necessary. From the moment they strode out and launched immediately in Process Man, GBS played this show and this crowd perfectly, masterfully so on Alan's pivotal part as front man. From the first lyrics of Process Man to the final notes of Fortune, they played this show like they had not a doubt in the world that they, and their music, were Fucking Cool. Confident, assured, even cocky, they went through their set with an edge and with an attitude, their whole demeanour one of having something of great value to share with this crowd, something well worth sitting up and taking notice of.

And damned if the crowd did not do just that. They sat up and took notice. While the already-converted sang along and jumped around up front - one couple was actually dancing, such a rare treat to see - I could see others nearby listening, tapping their toes, smiling, singing along with a few just-puzzled-out chorus lyrics. I could feel people's attention being caught and held, and that is one of the best feelings in this world. At Loch Ness, GBS had been embraced as a desperately needed jolt of warmth and energy; here at Beautiful Days, their performance was bold and insistent, persuasive and demanding. The performance was utterly seductive, a conquest pure and simple.

The photo I began this with, the closeup view of Alan's face, is from a moment during Lukey, third song into the set: Alan has just persuaded a crowd of no-clue-who-the-hell-GBS-is Brits to sing lustily along with the nonsense syllables that make up the chorus of this quintessentially Newfoundland Song. Alan can see and hear that he and his mates have won their crowd, that this crowd's attention has been caught and held and now belongs to them. That's the expression on his face in the photo, triumph's delight, and that is one of the sweetest expressions in this world. Beautiful days, indeed.

I would see more of Beautiful Days Alan at the following shows, if perhaps a bit less at the Borderline, certainly more at Tønder, culminating in that second show in the Big Tent, which might be the GBS show I have most enjoyed out of all the many shows I've been so fortunate as to see. So far.

During these shows, I got no shortage of pictures of Alan Doyle looking like Hope, looking like Happiness, Victory, Beauty, Assurance, Coolness, Sexiness, and so much more.  Still, there is something about these Beautiful Days shots that keeps me lingering over them, struggling to edit out the flaws caused by the effects of deadly backlighting on moisture inside the cameras. They are such beautiful photos, but also such difficult photos, such challenging photos, and perhaps that is the heart of their irresistible appeal; they are photos of a man who is also often nearly as difficult as he is beautiful, a man whose challenge is surpassed only by his reward.

So I will most likely keep focusing my attention on these beautifully difficult photos, a perfect example of one of the times when the pictures are not as good as was the show (and to answer the inevitable question before it's asked...yes, on occasion, the opposite has been true, though much less often than this outcome), which means it's going to be bit before I get to Loch Ness, Borderline, and Tønder photos, though I will put up the rest of the Tonder videos soon, I think. For now, here is the first part of a show I like to think of as The Successful Seduction.

The pink tent. No matter what the angle, it still looked like a double pair of impudently perky tits. 

Process Man, which caused a sudden hush to fall behind the row of already-fans up against the barrier. And where I first noticed some nasty refraction behind Sean. Then I recalled how wet my camera had gotten during the Loch Ness show, and how I'd carelessly shoved that wet camera back into a damp camera case, leaving it in there overnight and all during this day.

Captain Kidd, during which Alan kept a sharp and assessing eye on a crowd that was in turn doing its own assessing, intrigued but still not quite sure what to make of this band.

Fierce concentration going into Lukey, playing to win hearts with the music itself.

The crowd is singing along and Alan knows now that he has won a victory in this place. As said before, I love this face. If I were omni-potent (king or queen or demigod or what-have-you) I would order this world in such a way as to ensure this exact expression being on Alan's face at least once each day, a minimum of twice on weekends; but being no more than a lowly little peon, I'll instead take the greatest pleasure in seeing this expression on his face each and every time I am so fortunate.

And this expression as well. Alan surveys his crowd as they sing "their" Lukey verse, just barely suppressing his triumphant grin.

While Bob keeps right on looking like the Epitome of Cool Bad-Assdom.

They kept getting better and better, while my poor little camera kept getting worser and worser. I was way too occupied with being pissed at the time to figure it out, but with brain functioning in retrospect, what was likely happening was that moisture drops inside the camera were getting warmer as I kept using it, the increasing heat beginning to turn those moisture drops into steam.

The hush was well on its way to awe after the crowd was witness to a stirring version of River Driver.

I wish the camera had let it show a bit more clearly, but there is a very sexy Murray Foster to be seen here. There are times when I think perhaps I take Murray a bit for granted and maybe should pay more attention to him.

Beginning of Paddy Murphy, with the camera working only when there was no direct light behind the subject.

But despite the darkness and all the camera troubles, I could still see the sweetest face.

Their Shines Right Through was absolutely magnificent, as hard-rocking as the crowd could possibly want it to be.  It was dazzling, and it was also the moment my camera finally decided to take that trip to the sauna.

I was already pissed enough not being able to take a decent photo of this splendid performance. I saw Alan hold onto Les after Shines Right Through, and I thought they were doing When I Am King next. Then Alan began his intro to Straight To Hell...what was going to be the debut version of Straight To Hell on this side of the Pond...and when I saw this was all I could get of such an auspicious event, I got even crankier.

Then I finally remembered - Christina had her camera with her too. I need your camera, I stage-whispered over my left shoulder. No response, not even a quiver of motion. Where's your camera?, I said, a bit louder this time, turning toward her as I asked the question. When I saw her face, I knew why there had been no answer. She wasn't seeing or hearing anything other than Alan up on stage as he performed his song of redemptive damnation.

Poor Christina. It was her very first time seeing Alan perform Straight To Hell live, and shame on me for breaking the spell, but I needed the camera; so I growled an urgent I need your camera! at her in a tone of voice that's rather hard to ignore, bedazzlement notwithstanding. Always effective, that tone. But once I got the hastily retrieved camera, I realised I didn't really know how to use it. And that it too had its own moisture troubles. But despite all my bumbling and fumbling and cursing and muttering, I did manage to get a few decent photos of what was a magnificent European Pondside Debut Performance of a great song, a song I continue to believe could be a very big hit for Great Big Sea, on both sides of that Pond.

I've got a sinking feeling that I might have been a wee bit of a distraction at this point, I am very sorry to say. Clueless twit that I am, I could not get the flash on her camera to shut off and when I tried to cover the flash with electrical tape (works like a charm on my own camera), the damn thing was actually smoking each time the flash went off. I was having visions of tomorrow's tabloid headline "Idiotic American Burns Down Four-Breasted Tent At British Festival" with each puff of smoke.

But Alan kept right on going, unruffled and undeterred, sounding and looking marvellous in so doing.

Moisture effects are beginning to show once again as the second camera starts to get warm, but I kind of like the effect here. Alan looks like the pillar of flame that he truly is, perfect too in terms of the song's subject matter.

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Probably a good place to stop for now, quite a few photos for one entry and, besides, I think it's stopped raining, which means it's a good time to get out and about before the rain starts up again. Although no amount of rain is keeping me inside tonight. It's a rare time here when I wind up getting to see live performances not only from Alan and GBS, but also from Ron Hynes, Fergus O'Byrne, and from the musical maestro of this evening, Duane Andrews. That's the equivalent of going four-for-four, and I'll swim down to the Ship if need be for this turn at the plate.

The rest of the difficult-but-lovely photos of the difficult-but-lovely man and his mates in a day or so. Then most likely Tønder, though it could instead be Loch Ness or the Borderline. And I still have Bob's Festival Deconstruction piece on my mind, so it might be that next too. I won't know for sure till I finish with this show. I tend toward a single focus, and right now that single focus is on Beautiful Days.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that a large part of my fascination with the Beautiful Days Festival is because this was the show that had to be the greatest challenge. Loch Ness was a huge crowd, with all the anticipation and anxiety that can go with playing for such a big crowd, but it was a crowd in dire need of exactly what GBS had to give. The tiny Borderline crowd was comprised almost entirely of GBS fans, locals and travellers alike, everyone present delighted to be seeing GBS back in London after so many years. With Tønder, once you get past the total diehard fans of other bands who might not give a shit about anyone else, the rest of the crowd there is musically savvy and invariably good-natured; if you have good tunes and play those good tunes well, you'll thrive at Tønder.

But Beautiful Days was something else altogether, unknown territory and new frontiers, with GBS clearly not being the usual cup of tea for most of those who were in attendance during their set. It's been awhile since I've seen them play a gig where the majority of people there do not know who the hell GBS is and there's the risk to be faced of them not caring; for some time now, those aren't the kind of shows GBS has been doing, understandable enough in that those usually aren't the kind of shows that pay shit.

I've thoroughly enjoyed all the Evening With GBS shows and the GBS-Festival-Headliner shows I've seen lately - and I am very glad about how well they get paid for their corporate/private gigs - but I have also missed the GBS-Breaking-New-Ground shows that I love the most of all. I've missed being in the path of that wave of surprise and delight that sweeps through a crowd of people who are sitting up and taking notice of Great Big Sea for the very first time, feeling that wave build and crest as it works its way through the crowd and then heads back up toward the stage.

I've missed seeing who they can be when they are not playing for the already-converted and full-of-expectations crowds, that slightly wild feeling of unbounded potential hovering on the verge of breaking free and dazzling all beholders with its magnificence. There were moments during this show, and during the other European shows as well, when they looked like they were having the time of their lives; I've really missed seeing that.

I'm not sure about the rest of them, but I feel pretty safe in saying that it sure looked like Alan has missed all of this too, if the intensity of delight that kept showing on his face is any kind of reliable measure. Seeing the look of triumph on his face that comes from the realisation of a new frontier confronted and conquered - there is no more beautiful day than that. May there be many more such beauiful days to come.

Shit, I pissed around too long and now it's raining again. Oh well, I've been wetter. More later.

ETA: I just noticed I posted this entry at 11:11 blog time. Cool.

"Heaven On Earth Will Have To Do," Part Three - When Words Suffice: Lingering Over Alan's Journal Entries

I've been thinking more about words lately than about photos, Alan's words in particular. So this entry is about those words, about my own response to Alan's most recent journal entries - Europe, parts 1 and 2.

Alan Doyle, August 31 Journal Entry

In an effort to travel light through the “one bag limit” Heathrow, and the many planes, train, and automobiles that carried us around Europe on the recent GBS Tour, I left my computer at home.  No laptop on the road, so I’m just getting to compiling a few thoughts and remembrances of our romp that took us to Halifax,  Edinburgh, Inverness, Exeter, Bath, London, Hamburg, Tonder, and finally home in St John’s…all in ten days.

Air Canada has cancelled many or all of its direct flights to Heathrow from St. John’s, so many of us had to travel to Halifax around supper time to get the transatlantic flight late Thursday evening.  We arrived in Heathrow shortly after dawn, cleared UK Customs, and dashed across the airport, got on several escalators, staircases, moving sidewalks, then cleared customs again, for some reason, and secondary security and jumped aboard two different buses and a sub terminal train, to arrive at our connecting flight to Scotland which I’m certain was only three gates away from where we started.  I love England.  I really do.  I also have a fondness for London.  Heathrow, however, could very well be Hell on Earth.  I’m serious.  Fire and Brimstone could not possibly be as hellish and claustrophobic as this self confessed dangerously out of date and over run facility.  You guys know I hate airports, and Heathrow is the worst of the lot.

Enough whining.

Ah, but when the whining is charmingly well-written, there's no need to forego it. Whine at will, Dear Author.

No need to forego the laptop either, not to my way of thinking. We thumbed our noses at AC's perpetual shafting of Newfoundlanders and left on the 12th out of St. John's via Astraeus Airlines to Gatwick - I've still never been to Heathrow, but I can now say that Gatwick leaves much to be desired, chaotic and claustrophobic in its own right - and had that same one-carryon-limit to contend with, probably at least as many planes, trains, and automobiles along the way as well. I managed to get camera, computer, batteries, cords and cables, photo cards, USB sticks, passport, and a few "too irreplaceable to risk checking" items (no way any airline gets their grubby, luggage-losing hands on my Habs toque or my Oz Day hat, same for my battered-but-beloved Canada sweatshirt) into my laptop bag...all the rest of the necessities for the next 18 days were crammed in laws-of-physics-defying fashion into a pack on my back.  I did do a bit of whining about the weight of said pack, less charmingly so than Alan's whining, I am sure.

The backpack worked out better than my best hopes. I'm a wuss when it comes to carrying the rolling suitcases up and down stairs - of which there were an abundance in the train stations and at the hotels - and I am an even bigger wuss when it comes to hopping across the gap between station platform and train car, especially when trying to negotiate a suitcase along the same path. I still had my packed-to-the-gills laptop bag to contend with, but at least even a wuss can carry that for short distances. We managed to negotiate three flights, three train rides, two rental vehicles (one of them a tremendously cool camper van), and numerous taxis and shuttles while going to London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Inverness, Ottery-St.-Mary, Salisbury, Hamburg, and Tønder, a few of those locales visited/passed through multiple times.

The crew guys and Bob headed for Inverness while Sean, Murray, Kris and I made it to Edinburgh by lunch time on Friday and the sun began to shine the moment we stepped onto the sidewalk of the hotel which affords a perfect view of the Famous Royal Mile and Edinburgh Castle.  I nipped over the Edinburgh from Glasgow a few years back when GBS was playing the Celtic Connections Festival.  The train ride between the two cities is very short and I got the chance for a quick glance at what I now consider to be the loveliest city in the UK.  The Fringe Festival was in full swing when we arrived.  The Fringe is one of the greatest collections of extroverts you’ll ever witness.  Actors, dancers, musicians, comedians, painters, sculptors, and buskers from all nations descend on Edinburgh to flaunt their wares in this Orgy of the Arts.  I have a soft spot for any one willing to stand in front of me or a group that I’m in, and do something exclusively for my or our entertainment.  I think the world is a better place because of this Company of Fools, and I am a card carrying member to prove it.

A momentary pause for writer's appreciation. This is a beautifully crafted paragraph: it succinctly describes actions in both past and present, it makes me almost (but not quite) regret my own choice of Hadrian's Wall over an Edinburgh visit (next time, the "loveliest city in the UK" for sure), and it paints a perceptive self-portrait of the consummate-performer-turned-thoughtful-observer...all this in only 200 or so well-chosen words. Exquisite.

We saw some street music and performances, all of which were worth a listen and a look. We sat in a street side café and watched folks come and go. Tom Hanks walked by at one point. I assume he must be working in the area or just an Edinburgh lover like us. The whole city was consumed by the festival. Every ten steps we bumped into someone handing out pamphlets or cards for their show or performance. Many of them were in full costume. A very sexy Little Red Riding Hood invited me to the park at 7 pm while the ever present Peruvian pan flute players played “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”.

More excellent description, especially the juxtaposition of Little Red and S & G on pan flute; it deftly captures a sense of the surreal wonder of a beautiful city "consumed by the festival". I'm not sure how hard or how long Alan worked on this passage, but the final result of his efforts is some of his most evocative prose writing so far. Effective, as well. Absolutely and most definitely... Edinburgh next time.

In the evening we saw a few standup comedians.  This has to be the hardest gig in show business.  I watched some fairly gifted gal from London die a thousand deaths during her ill-received performance in the back of one of the zillion venues offering Fringe acts.  Like I said, she was OK, and OK can work just fine for a lot of gigs, say you’re an Irish pub singer, or the rhythm guitar player in a rock cover band, the drummer in Beatle mania,  the shaker player in Santana, the fourth sax player in a big band, …you get the picture.  There are many performance gigs where OK will get the job done and you can learn to hide behind your friends talents to mask your own shortcomings.  Trust me; I’ve done it for years.  Stand up comics may as well be naked on stage.  No help from anywhere in sight and nothing short of outbursts of uncontrollable laughter is considered a success.  In music terms, it would be like requiring a standing ovation three times a song. Almost impossible to succeed.  Can’t believe anyone would do it for a living.

I first read this journal entry more than a week ago, and since that first reading, this passage has been on my mind. There is so much to consider in Alan's words here. Context, subtext, the heart of the matter - call it whatever you will, there's a compelling portion of sincerity in these words, even if Alan's honesty about the issue of hiding could be called into question. Honesty and truth aren't necessarily cut from the same cloth...never let the facts get in the way of the good story, after all. These words are true and the story is indeed a good one.  Again, the self-portrait is vivid and alive; Alan's words make me see him at that comedy gig, keen eyes watching the ill-received performance thoughtfully, restless mind making the connections, empathy blending with self-awareness, resulting in understanding, as well as in skillful writing.

I tend to shy away from stand-up comics - especially live, but even on television - because of that same wide-open vulnerability that Alan describes; I find it difficult not to die those thousand deaths right along with the comic whose gig has gone bad. With musicians, I have at times felt torn...irresistibly drawn to those who lay bare their souls on stage, yet fearfully reluctant to become a helpless witness to their being devoured by the ever-present sharks in the water. I've done my own wondering about how they could do what they do for a living as well. But there comes the time when attraction totally overwhelms reluctance.

What Alan wrote about being "naked on stage" has been haunting my mind for days now, and not only for the most obvious reason (no sense even trying to pretend that bit of literal-level wishful thinking isn't front and centre, and, yes, there is a smile on my face as I type these words). Lingering for a few moments on the level of the metaphorical, however, I'll say that Alan Doyle is one of the most stage-naked performers I have ever seen in my life, right at the top of the list of those artists whose passion and desire, as well as whose vulnerability and need, are clearly evident to all but the most willfully blind.

I won't say there have never been those shows where Alan got the job done by being OK - if I tried to say that, he'd be the first to tell me I was being neither honest nor truthful; what I will say, however, is that I have never seen a show where Alan Doyle has not clearly shown how dissatisfied he is with "OK" and how deeply his heart longs for "superb". As spectacular as he is all of the many times he achieves those highest performance levels, he is as consistently beautiful in that ever-present metaphorical stage-nakedness as he would be on a literal level. Which is very high praise indeed.

We ate some of the best Italian food I’ve ever tasted at the Patio, and went to a headline comedy show featuring ex-Saturday Night Live cast member, Rich Hall.  His first half was one of the funniest, most bold performances I’ve ever seen.  Isn’t it funny how comics are often the only ones unafraid to call it like it is.  Their funniest material is the stuff that is closest to the God honest Truth.  Interesting.

Another comment of Alan's that's been teasing my brain for the past week, teasing and challenging. It sounds as if the Writer himself is feeling a bit teased and challenged. If so, good for him; it's excellent timing to be teased and challenged while working on a new CD, equally so when writing a book. Perfect timing for the God's Honest Truth and calling it like it is. I'd be fibbing if I tried to pretend I wasn't thinking about Where I Belong right now, though for sure that song's got no convenient humour to hide behind...it's the God's Honest Truth served up without qualification or apology, more so than any comic's act too. Straight To Hell does better at calling it like it is with a wink and a smile.

Actually, GBS in particular and Newfoundlanders in general already use humour a good deal to call it like it is. But that humour often tends to be too carefully subtle to penetrate perceptions formed by the bigoted stereotypes and willful delusions of many. The God's Honest Truth might be getting told, but it's not always being heard as such. And sometimes that is as much caused by the truth-teller's wanting to hold onto a protective shred of plausible deniability (Aw, it was just me foolin' around, missus, there's no need be gettin' pissed off!) as it is caused by those who are too stunned or too stubborn to hear that truth. Because comics lack the luxury of plausible deniability, bold and unafraid being part of the job description, there's a decent chance of artistic truth happening during their act. Artistic truth tends to tease and challenge, as well as to tempt and inspire, most creative people, be they musicians, authors, songwriters, or all of the above. Again, excellent timing.

Although I kept checking Italian-restaurant menus for my favourite dish - cannelloni, apparently more easily found in Europe than in the States - I wound up eating and drinking mostly local fare. Who would have thought haggis could be so tasty and lamb stews so rich and thick? Or Cumberland sausages so sensual? Even the Tuborg Classic was great, and good Guinness was far more common than not.  The pasties and meat pies reminded me of Australia, and cranachan is a bowl of pure heavenly bliss...warm toasted oatmeal, cream, heather honey, rasperries and as much whiskey as I wanted, to which I invariably replied, "Just put in however much you'd have for yourself." Delightful. I did make a bit of an ass of myself asking in Newcastle if they had any Earl Grey tea ("Have you been to the monument just down the street yet, dear?") but I somewhat redeemed myself by virtue drinking my cup of Earl Grey tea the "right" way, black. Which is how I drink all tea, but it still seemed to count anyway.

I wanted to continue late into the night, but the fact that I’d not been asleep in nearly forty hours coupled with my desire to not suck at the Runrig gig sent me to an early bed.

Edinburgh is spectacular.

I can't think of a better recommendation for the value of a good night's sleep - Alan was himself spectacular at the Runrig gig. Perhaps next time he can be spectacular in Edinburgh.

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Alan Doyle, September 1st Journal Entry

We woke early and jumped aboard the train in Edinburgh Station that would carry us to Inverness.  I love traveling on trains.  It seems so civilized and romantic.  We steadily wove our way through the Scottish Coast and took a sharp left turn after an hour or so and headed directly up to the Highlands.  Rolling green hills all around.

Our first British train ride - from London's King's Cross station to Newcastle - might have been civilised, but it lacked romanticism since I wound up having to sit facing backwards, not at all a happy outcome. But I distracted myself with logging onto the onboard online service (yes, definitely civilised) and got through it. The next train ride - from Newcastle to Edinburgh (all I saw of this lovely city was the train station, sad to say) and then the same ride Alan describes from Edinburgh to Inverness - was a vast improvement on the first, forward-facing and filled with gorgeous scenery...sparkling waves crashing against a rocky coastline, and then that sharp turn toward rolling hills and stony cliffs, all of it bathed in golden sunlight. I'd be recalling that lovely sunlight while waiting in a soggy line for the Runrig show to begin.

Could be worser.

Did I ever tell you about that saying?  “Could be worser”.  An old Skipper in Petty Harbour used to say that all the time.  I always thought it sounded cooler and made more sense than the proper grammar of “could be worse”.  It has an innocence and naivety that I find charming and honest.  Could be worser.

Excellent ear, Alan. "Could be worser" could scarce be any better. The same can be said for your writing voice, which is continuing to show an impressive growth in confidence and deftness.

We arrived in Inverness and the sky opened up.  The threatening rain of the forecast had kept its promise and dumped on the highlands just in time for the start of Runrig’s ‘Beat the Drum” Festival.  The Festival was actually a few kilometers outside of Inverness in the town of Drumnadrochit on the shores of Loch Ness.  The drive down the winding lake side, or loch side highway was slow, slow, as the concert goers made their way down the only access to the big gig.

There's more to be said about the Drumnadrochit show later when I finally get the photos done. For now, suffice to say I now call it the "Rainrig show at Loch Mess". I've lived in the Seattle area for 10 or so years and have travelled all across Canada in every season, but I never knew what it was like to stand in a constant stream of rain for more than 15 hours until this show. Or what such a steady stream of rain could create in terms of an entire landscape comprised solely of mud. Awesome, in its own sodden way.

The concert was a much bigger affair than I imagined.  With a Sold Out crowd of almost 20,000, the venue featured a massive stage, audio and light rig, video production, the whole lot.  We’ve toured with Runrig before and it seems they are still growing in popularity, despite being well into their fourth decade as a band.  That is quite an accomplishment and the lads deserve congratulations.

I'm fascinated by Runrig, still not at all sure I've got a solid understanding of what their music and their draw - not to mention their fans - are all about. Bruce Guthro seemed to have changed from how I'd seen him as Runrig Front Man back in 2004, at this show and at the Tønder Runrig gig I saw, enough so to make me think all the more about how different an artist he is in his solo work compared to his role with Runrig. And my attention kept being caught by one of the founding brothers of the band, Rory MacDonald, who even after all these years in the same band still plays his show as if it's the most important thing he could possibly be doing, which kept reminding me of someone else. This was indeed a Big Gig, a CD-release show and DVD-filming too. It seemed as if every Runrig fan from all across Europe might be there.

I guess it seemed that way to a Scottish television station too. While we were standing huddled up against the barrier in the relentless rain during the early opening acts, a fellow came along and asked me if I had come to see Runrig all the way from Australia. For a moment, I thought him daft, but then recalled I was wearing my Oz Day hat beneath the hood of my raincoat so its brim would keep my glasses somewhat dry. When I told him I was only from Seattle, he still seemed impressed and said he'd be back later for a radio interview. Yeah, sure.

More of the show went by, then GBS came on and I pretty much forgot about buddy the moment Alan walked out onto the big stage with an even-bigger smile on his face. Wolfstone played afterwards, and then it was nearly time for Runrig. I was just about as soggy and bedraggled as I've ever been, and here comes buddy again, walking up with a frigging cameraman in tow. Now he wants to do a film interview for Scottish television, one all about how far Runrig fans will travel to see their favourite band. I wonder if the camera was already rolling when I gave it that initial baleful look.

But this was a great PR opportunity, so I took a deep breath and tried to stop my teeth from chattering long enough to sound coherent saying that I found out about Runrig because of Great Big Sea playing with them at Tønder, that we were going to go see both bands again there too. Christina got in some good comments about being from GBS's home in Newfoundland, how it is right next to Bruce Guthro's own home province. Buddy asked how long we'd been standing out in the rain, and when he asked if it would be worth it, there was only one answer to be made: It's already worth it. And so it was.

We played our set and managed to get through it with no massive mistakes.  I think we were fairly well received.  With a long travel day ahead and rain coming down in buckets, we packed the gear and made our way back to Inverness.

Since I was still standing back at Borlum Farm in those buckets of rain as Alan made his way to Inverness, I can say that Runrig put on a very good show, though it must have been a challenge to keep a wet and weary crowd responding so enthusiastically. It should make for quite an interesting DVD.

While most of the other opening acts at Beat The Drum had been quite good - Julie Fowlis in particular - it was Great Big Sea who lit a warming fire in the midst of that cold and shivering crowd; this is not my opinion alone...it's what I heard people saying over and over again, as well as what I felt in the crowd. They brought enough electricity to give the crowd a much-needed jolt. As well as Wolfstone played after them, it really wasn't the kind of music for somehow perusading you into believing that your feet were not too wet, nor was your body too cold, for dancing, which is exactly what GBS managed to pull off. Another one of the many times when they make it so easy to be proud of them, and even more important, one of the needs-to-be-more-frequent times when it looked as if they were enjoying themselves as much as the crowd was enjoying them.

A drive, a flight, and a drive got us to the Beautiful Days Festival near Exeter, England. Ever see those photos from Glastonbury?  You know, the ones with people covered in mud, looking kind of Druidish?   That was the vibe at the Beautiful Days Festival.  British festival fans are completely unhindered by mud.  Not only do they happily stroll through it, oblivious to the dirt and muck that they would normally avoid, but they also look very cool doing so.  Dare I say, the gals actually manage to make it look sexy!  Yes British gals in Festival Wellies are sexy.  There, I said it.  Sexy Wellies.  Maybe it’s my Petty Harbour wharf days coming back.

Our escape from Inverness was a bit more challenging. By the time the show ended - with a massive diversion of those thousands of people out a single exit since the other entryway into the festival grounds (a not-very-well-thought-out bridge crossing that had been built specifically for this show) had been flooded out, the lazy little creek of the morning now turned into a raging torrent - we returned to an absolute mud hole of a pasture-pretending-to-be-a-parking-lot. Walking was difficult enough (I went down on my arse in the mud, but managed to keep the sausages safe), driving was impossible. Everyone was getting stuck in the mud, with rescue attempts good-natured but utterly haphazard. A drunk fellow pushed us out of one quagmire, then staggered on his merry way; we promptly got stuck again in the next quagmire.  A group of drunk teens cheerfully pushed us out of that one...they staggered away and we got stuck, all over again. The lineup to the main exit gate was hundreds of cars long, all of them just as stuck as we were, with no help in sight (they eventually brought in a tractor and pulled people out one by one, taking hours to clear all the vehicles out, or so we were later told).

We had a 7 am flight out of the Inverness airport, and I was growing weary of being stuck in the mud, so we chose not to wait God knows how long for outside assistance. We decided to take a shot at the now-deserted back entrance, with nobody but yours truly to push the rental car out of its current quagmire. I got behind the car, planted my feet ankle deep in the muck, put my hands on the bumper and shouted out for Christina to go for it; then I pushed as hard as I could while my feet were sliding out from under me and the wheels spun madly. Damned if the blasted car didn't break loose and shoot forward, nearly leaving me on my face in the mud. We made it out of the sodden pasture and onto the pavement, shouting in giddy victory.

Then we drove to the Inverness airport, thinking we could clean up and catch a few hours sleep some place warm and dry. And discovered the airport did not open for three more hours. Ever sleep in a Ford Focus while in the Rental Car Return Lane, still wearing your soaking wet muddy clothes?

We cleaned up as best we could in the airport bathroom before getting on the flight back to London, where we picked up another rental car and drove straight to the Beautiful Days Festival in Ottery-St.-Mary, just outside of Exeter. Once we arrived, we realised our efforts to clean off the accumulated mud had been as pointless as they were futile. I was beginning to comprehend that Mud is an intergral component of British Festivals, even before Alan pointed it out. As slippery as the footing was walking around the Festival grounds, still I took my chances of landing on my arse yet again and wandered around the entire circuit, fascinated to the point of being transfixed by all I saw. This was my first experience with British Festivals, though I hope nowhere near my last.

And I learned a great deal, chief lesson being that hiking boots do not cut it. Next time, I won't be caught without my wellies, and not just because Alan thinks them sexy, though that certainly adds yet more motivation for making room for those rubber boots in my pack. ("And when she had her wellies on, she could dance as well as anyone".)

Only saw one other act at the Festival.  Comedian Bill Bailey is a huge draw in the UK and I can see why.  His parody songs are both hilarious and poignant.  More evidence that the funny guys are the ones with the truest words.  He is a great player as well and he wowed the packed tent of a few thousand fans.

Bill Bailey wowed me right along with the rest in that tent. He was introduced as the performer who had been most requested by festival-goers, and I can see why. Some of his parody songs are so perfect that they stand only inches inside parody's boundary, and his wit cuts clean and sharp and deep. It was interesting to see so many young audience members catching every nuance of even the most subtle jokes. I think Alan's showing his perceptiveness again with his "poignant" assessment of Bailey; there's something about the man that makes you wonder what it is he might have started out wanting to do before he became so successful at what he's doing now, something that reaches out and touches you even when he's also making you howl with laughter.

We played our set to a hearty crowd of close to a thousand people and we sold a bunch of discs to newly converted fans. 

I liked the crowd in that silly pink tent for GBS's show. There were a few Canada transplants and some local fans from earlier tours, but there were also a whole lot of people who stuck around after the preceding acts (Bill Bailey and several straight-up rock bands before him, all of which made the rockier GBS set list a great call) or who wandered in because they liked what they heard.

I'm not surprised the intrepid GBS merch man sold lots of CDs at Beautiful Days...as best I could tell, it's a Festival designed for the well-heeled music lover (It's an expensive festival, but every penny paid was worth it to me for those few moments after the GBS set alone) to wallow cheerfully in an abundance of both good music and mud, to play Hippie/Stoner/Druid/Free Spirit for a few days and then come back home with a slew of CDs and a pile of tie-dye, maybe even with a few hazily indiscreet memories, as souvenirs of a grand time had before heading off back to the office on Monday morning. In other words, a great place for GBS to play. Perhaps everyone can do it again next year.

We bolted after the show to Exeter, where Sean, Murray, Kris and I stayed for the evening.  We thought about hitting the hay early after a long day on the road.  We dropped our bags in the room and went directly to the pub instead.

We briefly considered staying for the Levellers' festival-closing performance, but it had been a godawful long day for us too. We also briefly considered Exeter, but since we were travelling to Stonehenge th next day, we decided to head up to Salisbury and see if we could find a place to stay there. After ineffectually wandering around that town for a bit, we resorted to my tried-and-true tactic for finding a good place in any town - we asked at the busiest pub we could find. Sure enough, buddy there directed us to the Red Lion Hotel, aptly named and veritably awash in history and romance, where we spent a delightful evening, one that included our own pub venture, as well as a bed kept warm by a sweetly accommodating little lion, who also had his own gorgeously furry belly. I am an utter pushover for a sexy belly.

That catches me up to where Alan is, though paths are going to diverge once again, since I spent the next day pondering the enigmatic remoteness of Stonehenge and he headed for yet another one of our alternate destinations. But after that day, all paths converge again in London, at the crime scene that then became the scene of a great show, though I'm also thinking of it as the place where I very nearly asked Alan the question I've been carrying around for such a long time, adding to it and then editing it, re-wording it more times than I can count. A question that went still-unasked in London, as well as in Tønder, but only just barely so. At least I'm finally to the point where it's a matter of when I ask it, no longer one of if.

Could be worser.

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With any discipline at all, next up should be some photos, maybe of Loch Ness or even Tønder first. I'm still not sure where to begin, especially since I realised last night that I never did anything with most of the Ridgefield/Cape Cod/Lowell show photos either. I'm thinking about just starting with the shows that made me the happiest, which are invariably the shows where Alan looks the happiest. Sequential order is somewhat overrated, after all; much easier to order and rank by Alan-smile.

I'd still like to make a few comments about Bob's Festival Deconstruction too, and maybe even tell the tale of the giant Eastern European London club bouncer who became so inexplicably fond of me that he waived the cover charges each time we went to sample the most excellent Guinness there. The B&B proprietor who found out too late that normal and innocent appearances can be quite deceiving. The shit-faced would-be suitor in the pub who kept mistaking "Seattle" for "Slainte" and repeatedly offered up toasts to the State Of Washington. Other tales for the telling as well, but they will have to wait. For now, it's a gorgeous afternoon and I am going for a nice long walk.

"Heaven On Earth Will Have To Do" Part Two - Embracing The Serendipitous & The Unforseen, With Help From Russell Crowe's New Film; Photos & Videos From The GBS Rogers Show At The Glacier

ETA: I could just wait till the next entry to say what I foolishly forgot earlier today, since that next entry should be fairly soon, given that I've got the house here to myself for the next week, lots of quiet time to get work done - if the weather stops being so lovely, that is. But some things are too cool to wait even a short time to say: After the Borderline and Tønder shows, this blog was googled repeatedly by those searching to hear/see more of Straight To Hell, nearly all of those search requests originating in Europe; now, after the Glacier show, what I am seeing is multiple searches here for Walk On The Moon, and nearly all of these hits are now coming from Canada...more specifically from Newfoundland, I'm assuming. (Note to the searchers: Check out the righthand column here for video links to Walk On The Moon and Straight To Hell, along with so much more.) Now that is cool. Perhaps I need to give some in that Glacier crowd much more credit and respect than was my initial inclination.

I debated for all of about 2 minutes whether to begin with the words or with photos of the most beautiful and persuasive man I've ever seen reign over any and all stages. But since this entry is all about acknowledging the wonderful and the amazing and about embracing the serendipitous and the unforeseen, all while making a path through the midst of the challenges and the constraints of the Real World, it really wasn't much of a debate.

I suppose this entry has now become about the gorgeous and the sexy as well. What odds.

A few more photos from the GBS Rogers show at the Glacier and a collection of video download links - including a General Taylor from Sean worthy of making his Mom proud and a Clearest Indication from all of them that certainly made me proud - after a few of those debate-losing words.

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Isn’t it funny how comics are often the only ones unafraid to call it like it is.  Their funniest material is the stuff that is closest to the God honest Truth.  Interesting