Date: July 12th, 2008
Venue: Metro Square
Series: Toronto Night Market ‘08
When I looked out the window on Saturday morning, the skies were grey and the sun was nowhere to be seen. I made a bee-line for the nearest computer and checked the weather forecast – theweathernetwork.ca informed me that the evening had thunderstorms in store, with an 80% P.O.P. Being that we were scheduled to play at the Toronto Night Market (an annual festival celebrating Asian culture and tradition held in the huge parking lot of Metro Square) that night at 11 15pm, I immediately braced myself for the worst. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we didn’t have so much riding on this gig: aside from the show itself being delayed (or at the very worst, cancelled) due to the weather, we worried that rain would ruin the crowd turnout, which in turn would ruin our merchandise promotion (Soul Plane demos and t-shirts were to be released for sale for the first time ever that night), which in turn would ruin MuchMusic’s coverage of this show (see “MuchMusic (yes, THE MuchMusic)” blog – July 8th, 2008), which in turn would have put me in jail because I’d go bat-shit crazy and just demolition derby everything within a 10-metre radius of my personal vicinity until I get pulled away either in handcuffs or a bodybag. Real talk.
We were to arrive at Aaron’s for 1pm so that we could be at soundcheck for 2pm. Once we got to Metro Square, the organizers of the event and the sound crew were very on point; we were checked and out of there within the hour. Soundcheck was of utmost importance because we knew that MuchMusic would be coming to film the performance, and we didn’t want to sound like we did the night before at Holy Joe’s. We even made a point of running through all of “Life is Beautiful” so that the sound man could make all the necessary level adjustments to get us sounding the way we wanted. Mel nearly forced the poor guy at knifepoint to write down all the values so that there would be no margin for error.
We adjourned back at Aaron’s house and did a whole lot of nothing until I decided to ditch everyone to go home and grab the clothes I was going to wear on stage that night. The five-minute drive home saw some light drizzling against the windshield of Mel’s RAV4. As I walked into the house, my dad asked me if I was ready for my show that night. I said that I was, but that I also needed it to not rain because otherwise I would go out swinging on senior citizens, small children, and wounded animals. He gave me a weird look and mumbled something about the hospital switching bassinets on him 21 years ago.
A while later, I stepped out of the shower and, much to my dismay, heard thunder. I quickly got dressed and rushed out the door, I was almost scared right back inside. The rain coming down was heavy enough to fix a bad back. I could see dents in the pavement that weren’t there before. As I ran to Mel’s car trying to avoid a deep-tissue massage, I remember wondering if it was even worth making the effort to get to Toronto Night Market considering the weather conditions – at this rate, I was 100% sure that they would have shut the stage down for the remainder of the night. I had never been so depressed in my life. I spent most of dinner wishing I would die in a forest fire.
We were all back at the Mellet residence by 8pm, and, thankfully, the rain had almost fully stopped – we just prayed to the powers that be that it was gone for good. Conor was there by about 8 10pm, and then Hector and Julie from MuchMusic arrived by 8 30pm. Harrison (Machinehead Studio owner and Soul Plane benefactor) rolled up at 8 40pm with shrink-wrapped copies of Black Box and several dozen assorted Soul Plane t-shirts, ready to be sold at the promotion booth the Night Market organizers had set aside for us. By 9pm, we were prepared for departure. Julie hitched a ride with Kevin, Gideon, Aaron, and Luke (she had a media pass, meaning they wouldn’t have to search and destroy for a parking spot); Hector hopped into the passenger seat of Mel’s RAV4 with a camera and asked Conor, Harrison, Mel (obviously) and me to join him in the car. Mel threw the keys to me and got in the back. There is nothing I love more than the thrill I get from having to divert my attention from focusing on the road to talking into a MuchMusic camera rolling right beside me, especially when I don’t own and am not insured under the car I’m driving. Looks like I might not need rain to put me in jail after all.
It was almost 10pm when we finally managed to find a parking spot. Once we got out of the car, Conor took a call from Shain, one of our friends (and soon-to-be head honcho of Soul Plane’s promotional team) who was in early attendance. Shain informed us that he had been at the Toronto Night Market for several hours, and that not too long ago, one band had already been sent home without the chance to perform due to the extremely adverse weather conditions, and that they had already shut down the stage once when it was pouring earlier. Upon hearing this I almost threw myself in front of traffic – already the programme for the evening was being cut short as a direct result of the storm. Any more rain would spell disaster for our evening and leave our best efforts spoiled like milk in the sun.
The minute we got near the stage where the organizers were anxiously keeping an eye on the weather, Conor was in their faces trying to strongarm an earlier set time for us, or at least for them to let us keep our original set time (11 15pm) despite the ongoing postponement. Conor fully understood the ramifications of Soul Plane’s set being cancelled should it rain again – not only would the crowd be sorely disappointed, but Harrison’s rush to produce our demos and t-shirts would have been in vain, MuchMusic would subsequently have been forced to go home empty-handed, and the good folk at Toronto Night Market would incidentally lose the chance to give this yearly fundraising festival national television exposure. After over 30 minutes of negotiating (ie, Conor using Much’s presence as leverage), it was finally agreed upon by both parties that Soul Plane would be able to keep our original set time of 11 15pm on the dot, provided it didn’t piss from the heavens until then.
When the act we were to follow prepared to exit the stage, the Night Market organizers told us that our set time had to be cut short from five songs to four due to the performance backlog. No prob, Bob – at this point we just wanted to get on and rip it. We immediately re-wrote our setlist: “Impossible,” then “No Worries,” then “Soul Playin’,” then “Life is Beautiful.” Before we had a chance to revise this list, the emcees of the show started introducing us, saying things like, “After blowing us away last year, this band clearly needs no further introduction, their performance here tonight is covered by MuchMusic...” – they really did a stellar job bigging us up to the fullest possible extent and getting the crowd excited for our act. To be honest, I thought it was a little over-the-top – but then again, what do I know? I’ve never been associated to anything anyone speaks highly of.
Too bad we weren’t able to maintain the hype, though. Once we stepped on stage, we realized the cymbals to the drumkit Night Market had provided were strewn all over the floor behind Aaron’s seat. Aaron consequently had to take a good ten minutes just to get set up – during this time I addressed the crowd in Cantonese and begged them to bear with us, and they did. At first, because of how long it took the band to get ready, the audience seemed bored and indifferent by the time Aaron got his metronome going and started tapping Gideon in for “Impossible.” Towards the end of the first verse, however, no one who was paying us even the remotest of attentions was left on their ass – the whole Night Market scene seemed to suddenly come to life as they cheered us on louder than any crowd at any show we’ve ever played at. And when I yelled, “...And everybody PLEASE give a warm welcome to MuchMusic!!” into the mic while pointing at Hector’s camera? Fugheddaboutit.
At the end of “Impossible,” I brought the crowd back with our signature cheer: “WHEN I SAY SOUL... YOU SAY PLANE!!” I did it twice – both times the “PLANE!” part came in a deafening roar. This kind of reaction was exactly what MuchMusic needed to film. As Kevin started playing the intro to “No Worries,” I announced that we had copies of Black Box for sale, as well as Soul Plane t-shirts that would make great souvenirs of the concert. As I directed the audience’s attention towards Conor and Harrison (who were already each wearing a Soul Plane t-shirt and running around holding them up), Harrison approached the stage and passed me a stack of four copies of the demo and told me to give them away. I split the crowd down the middle and held a cheering contest between the two sides to see who would get the CDs, and as I held them out, I was almost pulled down by one guy in the front row who ignored all conventions and norms and just tried to grab at a copy, as well as a gorgeous Asian girl who strapped on some kinda mini-jetpack and launched herself through the once-impenetrable crowd to get a hold of what she thought was rightfully hers. I think she might even have cracked the CD case with her vice-grip. The other two copies just got lost in the Matrix somehow.
As Mel sang her bridge for “No Worries,” one of the Night Market organizers signalled to me from the side of the stage telling us that we only had time for one more song. Shit, I had spent too much time interacting with the crowd and promoting our merchandise. Didn’t matter though – we made do. I wasn’t entirely pissed, either – we played three songs out of the five on our demo, and the blessing in disguise here we were able to leave our audience wanting more – and the quickest, easiest way to satisfy that craving? Drop $5 on a demo, or $10 on a t-shirt if you really loved us and want to support our cause. I gave one last shout-out to MuchMusic, waited for cheers, shouted out the release of our demo once again, and launched right into the verse for “Life is Beautiful.”
There was to be no silencing of the audience after our set. The applause was booming as the Much cameras kept rolling – even the show’s emcee slipped up and said, as we were getting off the stage, “Wow! That’s going to be a hard act to follow!” His female counterpart immediately reprimanded him on stage, but he continued to defend his statement by insisting that it was true, that Soul Plane was just a “highlight of highlights.” Let me be the first to say that we are honoured to be on the receiving end of a compliment of this stature. Speaking of being on the receiving end of things, it felt like I got clotheslined the minute I stepped off stage to rejoin my band. People from all over went out of their way to wait for us at the side of the stage to congratulate us for an amazing performance. I was absolutely swarmed – it was Bradstock-esque (see “Bradstock ‘08” blog – June 18, 2008), to say the least. Guys were trying to talk to me; girls were trying to take pictures with me. Everyone wanted an autograph on either a copy of the demo or a Soul Plane t-shirt they had purchased – I had to steal the sound guy’s Sharpie pen when he wasn’t looking in order to oblige.
To sum it up, it was a totally crazy night. We went from fearing that the stage would be shut down to shutting down the stage by ourselves. The rain had backed off completely for the entirety of our set. The people were present in plenty; they loved us and were not afraid to show it. Everybody bought a lot of merchandise (Harrison made his money back and then some) and asked us for ways to follow up with us and keep up with Soul Plane’s upcoming events. The feedback for our portion of the evening was nothing short of fabulous. The best part of the whole experience, though? MuchMusic got all this on tape; Hector later told me he ran over two full hours – our total set time was maybe 20 minutes.
Yeah, I’d say the Night Market was pretty successful this year. Hopefully, we’ll up the ante again for 2009. All I can say is that we’re working on it...
Pictures from the Toronto Night Market are up (courtesy of Katherine)... see the “Soul Plane At A Glance” section now!
