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A Tale or Two about Day For Night - continued
"For us, the songs are continually evolving. Months of adding and subtracting
will determine if a song is good enough to stand on its own." Gord Sinclair
Three weeks after returning to Kingston, the band packed up again and headed
for Morin Heights, a small town one hour north of Montreal in rural Quebec.
There, with the two Marks and Billy Ray, the band began to mix everything and
of course, tinker further. For two or three weeks they fiddled and mixed and
generally put all the tracks together. With Morin Heights being only four hours
away, the band also had the luxury of getting home once in a while and everyone
took turns spending time up at the studio. It was a good choice of location for
the mixing because, while relatively close to home, it was in the hills and isolated
enough to allow everyone to concentrate on the songs. However, the mixing did
not end in those hills and our adventures would continue into the summer.
By now, it was June. As well as the recordings to work on, we had to get ready
for some live gigs. Our first big show in some time was a Canada Day concert
on, of course, July 1st. It was an all-day, open air show with some of our favorite
Canadian bands on the bill. Change of Heart, The Odds and Spirit of the West
were among the nine other acts that day. 35,000 people showed up, it didn't
rain and no one was killed; so, we all had a good time. The rest of the summer
yawned in front of us and we hit the road.
Whatever life a song might have in the studio, or on record, can be measured by
the final product only. But on the stage, any song can have one hundred lives.
Some songs really come alive only when only when an audience breathes life
into them and thus, the purpose of the road is revealed. No matter how shitty a
gig, how horrid the travel, how unpalatable the food, the songs continue to save
our skins night after night. And when the gig is great, and the club within
walking distance from whatever conventioneer-filled hotel we can't wait to
leave, then the songs become an unstoppable juggernaut of compressed ear
drums, rattling teeth and frayed nerves. Some nights we teeter between the two
extremes, but the road is unending.
And so, when Day For Night is released in America in the new year, we will find
ourselves in the midst of a Canadian tour and in the grips of whatever weather
the Great Lakes might throw at us. For the same reasons we might tour Texas
in July, we will tour Canada in the dead of winter; the songs demand to live,
no matter how extreme life may be. Since the release of the record in Canada
and Europe this past fall, we have seen both extremes again and again. We
bounced around America for 19 more shows after the 20 we had played in the
summer, prior to the album's release. We then trundled off to Europe for 14
shows in 6 countries. Along the way we made friends with all in the Blues
Traveler organization. Another rare bonus from the road; like-minded souls
who have many tales of their own.
In the end, the days and nights blur together into a seamless river of
misadventure and near-insanity anchored only by the music that comes from
the soundchecks, concerts and the uncounted beers drained in Brussels or
Oklahoma City. The songs don't know where they are, and some nights neither
do we. But above all the noise we might make about ourselves, or how hard the
road might be, the music has always been louder.
David Powell, Road Manager, Dec. 19/1994
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