Garbage Times Band

Date: Nov 21^st, 2008.

Venue: The Opera House

Series: S&S

Shortly after our MuchMusic episode aired early on around mid-September, a local promotion called S&S got in touch with us and asked if we were interested in playing at the Opera House on Friday, November 21^st. Thinking that our success on TV would help us draw out numbers to fill the Opera House and given the amount of time between now and show night, we went for it and within a week, we had tickets in our hands to sell to our fans.

In mid-October, Mel found out that she would have to represent the University of Western Ontario’s hip hop team in a province-wide dance competition in Hamilton on Saturday, November 22^nd. The event was a huge deal and there was no way she would be able to miss it. We understood, and, after talking amongst ourselves, we decided that we’d go ahead with it since we still had a long time to promote the gig, and because of this grace period we would also have time to practice with Conor, who would have to fill in as DJ and scratch over most of Mel’s parts. It would be a different sound, a more gritty sound, a less practiced sound… but a sound we definitely had heard before when our former vocalist Blythe got sick the day of a show we were performing at the El Mocambo (see In One Ear Throwdown Showdown blog – Sept 7, 2007). The result of this spontaneous experiment was rather stellar, given that we had rehearsed an astounding total of 0 times before throwing it together on the El Mo’s first floor stage. In any case, it worked out before with no prep time so there was no reason why, logically, it wouldn’t work out BETTER with SOME prep time and ALL this month and some change left to sell tickets.

False. We still blow chunks like fellating fatties.

The promotion for this show was riddled with tell-tale signs of our usual “too little too late” approach. Vlad, Conor, and I ran around the Eaton Centre handing out tickets to the gig to people who generally just forced a smile and tried to seem as genuine as possible while bold-faced lying to us through their teeth: we heard everything from “Sorry, bro, I got a thing,” to “Oh… yeah, sure, I’ll see what’s up with my friends and maybe we’ll come check you guys…” to “Soul Plane? I love Soul Plane! I’m coming for sure!” No, are you not, you’re full of shit and I can smell it from here. Wipe your mouth; you’re starting to skidmark a bit under your lower lip. Aside from this and the usual website/MySpace/Facebook post/text-blast, we didn’t give a shit and it showed. It was a shitshow.

The fact that Mel wasn’t at the gig hurt more than just our performance; only when our set started did I realize that we had completely overlooked the fact that the Opera House stage was like a fucking football stadium compared to the cubicle that was the El Mocambo. With Mel, it would have been at least two bodies moving about constantly onstage to the rhythm to get the crowd going. How the hell was Conor supposed to help with stage presence with two big-ass turntables and a mixer on a stationary banquet table in front of him? I’m not Jay-Z… filling a stage the size of the one at the Opera House by myself was something I was not accustomed to having to do. Whatever, I did my best to get the crowd going, but the effort seemed more like putting a wet blanket over a pile of puke and hoping that no one notices the smell – hardly anybody moved during our entire set. This almost NEVER happens. Usually people are hopping after our first song, but this time, the complete change (or lack) of dynamics was not suitable for our audience. It seemed like I was rapping to a bunch of nursing home residents. It was the slowest suicide ever without actually getting to die. My girl Jade swears that there were some loud-ass cheers coming from the section where the 19+ concert attendees were quarantined with their alcohol, but I don’t remember hearing anything. I would have remembered a cheer, since there were so few of them at such small volumes that night. Instead the only memories I have are of me wishing the set would hurry up and end so that I could get off stage. But I digress, because a dead crowd is still better than no crowd. A dead crowd means that we fell off for that one particular night. No crowd means we’ve sucked forever and now even less people care to notice.

Mel not being at our show ruined our entire turn out. You have to understand something: look up Melanie Goldman on Facebook. Go on, just do it. When she adds you, look at how many friends she has in her list. She’ll tell you she doesn’t talk to all of them all the time, but I’ve seen her on her Blackberry and I know much better. Before Soul Plane got on national TV, during my promotion runs for the band, I’d tell random people on buses and in malls around Toronto that I rapped for a local band called Soul Plane and one out of every 15-20 people I talked to would be like: “SOUL PLANE?? DO YOU KNOW MEL G??” In short, all the girl has to do to bring 20 people to ANY EVENT SHE IS AT is send out a couple messages on Facebook – I mean, she’s the reason we can even call our crowd a “fanbase.” Needless to say, her absence at the show translated into a crowd of maybe 20 people. Luckily it was a Friday night and there were some people at the Opera House. Otherwise I would have left.

To the fans: seriously, more of you guys gotta start making an effort to come out to these things. You’re all we got. Without you our music falls on no ears (we’d be grateful even for deaf ones – Vlad actually gave a ticket to a deaf guy at the Eaton Centre on Friday afternoon before the gig), and really, you guys are almost the whole reason we do this. If you want to see Soul Plane blow up, this is your chance to become part of the solution. If you love us you will show up to our next gig.

For the love of God.

Anyway, I don’t know whether I’m getting more bored or more depressed as I’m writing this, but I’ve decided to just stop because I hate dwelling on garbage. Bottom line: the band will never be playing another gig without some sort of female vocalist/counterpart for me to play off of on stage. Not to say Conor didn’t pull his weight on the wheels of steel because he did and then some, but he shouldn’t have had to. It was a shitty night and no one should have to hear any more about it. In conclusion, Soul Plane learned a hard lesson: prepping for important gigs is like having unprotected sex; you gotta know when to pull out.