| Beers
with the Tragically Hip
The CFNY christmas party, The Spectrum, December '89
We slipped and spun along the snow covered Danforth Ave to
the world famous Spectrum Night Club. It was around 3:00 pm
and we were ready to party and rock with Canada's new and
upcoming band from Kingston, The
Tragically Hip. We had been pumping up the show for the
last month with on-air interviews and ongoing press releases
being read on the most important radio station in the world,
CFNY...
This was our third christmas party with the CFNY crew and
we had all become good friends with Captain Phil, Freddie
P, Don Berns, Hal Harbor, Live Earl Jive, Allan Cross and
new rock legend Ivar Hamilton... the Slime Dogs' christmas
single "I want Santa" was in heavy rotation on CFNY
and the video was in its second season of national broadcast
on MuchMusic... and now we were going to play with the Hip!
The snow continued to pile up outside the Greektown Disco...
but as this was the hottest ticket in Toronto, if not North
America that December, there was no worrying about not filling
the hall...
The slimes had been practicing very hard and were ready to
rock... the fact that we were a heavy rock act with not many
tunes from the CFNY play list on our song list never stopped
us... we had the most wanted opening act in the world tonight...
Our radio station friends started to show and we started to
party... our nerves were settling, except for JoJo, who always
got so nervous she couldn't eat (only drink)... We got to
the stage for a sound check and I pulled out my freshly painted
bass, plugged it into the amp and listed to it hiss and pop
and cut out... we went through a couple of songs and I was
getting as nervous as Jo... where can I get a back up bass
in a snowstorm that was closing the city...?
"Let's take it apart and rewire it" quipped Raymond,
our god of sound.
"With what?", I barked out of nervous rage.
"We got our tools and we'll find some wire"...
As we tore apart my prized bass in the hall on our way to
the dressing room, "awesome paint job...I got a spare
P bass upstairs if you need it" piped up the bass player
from the Hip as the band walked by... "thanks, we'll
let ya know if we need it, but we think we got this bad boy
fixed.." we said as we took apart one of the overhead
lights and stole 3 feet of wire...
Captain Phil came by. "You guys set? There's a full fridge
and the bowls of red mm's as in your rider in the room...and
by the way, watch the crowd, Ringo
Starr is in town tonight and he'll be here..."
"Let's do it", we said as the Slimes headed to the
dressing room to celebrate the rebirth of the bass... as we
entered the room we started talking with the drummer and the
bass player about how we wanted a bus... it was about then
that Gordie Downie came out and told us that there was some
mistake, this was the Hip's dressing room and the fridge was
off limits to us... and it was obvious they had grand pre-show
plans...
We were stunned but thirsty, so we said goodbye to the nice
rhythm section and hit the bar... the show was great and the
slimes rocked to a full house, including Ringo, and as we
came off stage, the Hip's guitarist was standing there "killer
version of Highway Star, I love Deep
Purple man, you guys rocked..."
So we kind of did have a beer with some of the Hip... and
since then I've never bought one of their albums... Never
mess with the Slime Dogs' beer! |
