123194 Purple/Spruce/Incity Dreams, Gatineau, QC

Auberges des Rapides – or as we all called it: “Auberge” – was a something-else-a-thon that took up my New Year’s Eve’s and Hallowe’en’s for awhile back in the 1990’s.  In reality the place was a dark and dingy Quebecois brasserie with an undisturbed ’70’s era anti-decor and a handful of upstairs rooms for rent.  If forced to imagine the regular clientele I would picture about a half-dozen flannel-jacketed John Deere-capped habitants scattered about the room, each one silently nursing a quart of Labatt’s 50 while the Canadiens game flickered on the ancient 18” barely-colour television that sits high on a wooden shelf in the corner.

On NYE and All Hallow’s Eve, however, a decidedly irregular crowd of a hundred or more Ottawa-based freaks and friendlies took over the place like it was our own psychedelic sovereign nation, complete with live bands playing hippie anthems and a distinct lack of rules, laws, or decorum.  You could even bring in your own drinks.  At least I think we were allowed to bring in our own drinks.  Heck, I’m not sure I ever bought a beer in the place, but I sure drank my fill while I was there.

With regards to this ticket from December 31st, 1994…well, I don’t remember a whole lot specifically from this night but then that’s pretty much how the events were designed.  I remember watching Purple open the show but I’m pretty sure the band was just two people back then?  I always liked Purple…is it possible this was the first time I saw them?  They registered a relatively tiny blip on the Ottawa music scene but like I say, I always thought they were pretty good.  The little piece of paper that lives beside the ticket stub in my concert album tells me that I saw Spruce too.  I do recall watching their set but when it comes to seeing Incity Dreams I’m going to have to take my handwriting’s word for it, I don’t recall seeing them at all*.  

Really, I am more apt to recall this Auberge for the Auberge’s that it wasn’t.  For example: it wasn’t Hallowe’en so it wasn’t any of the one’s where I wore a costume, and that means it wasn’t the one where that guy from Moncton who came with me got very weirded out by the scene and spent the whole night curled up in the corner.  It wasn’t the one where the clown kept meandering through the crowd with a huge silver serving tray piled high with sugar cubes.  It wasn’t the one (the ones?) when my band Bob Loblaw performed so I didn’t have a room upstairs.  It wasn’t the one where the cops picked up my buddy Steve walking down the road naked.  It couldn’t have been; I didn’t know Steve yet.  But I just thumbed through my ticket binders and I can’t find any Auberge ticket stubs after this one so I must have let at least one go unrecorded.

Oh wait, maybe this is the one where my lawyer was left hanging.  He was all like “Can I have that back?” and I was all like [shrug?], and he was all like “ummm” and I was like what? and he was like “Don’t tell me…”,  What? All of it?  and I was all like what?!?  And he was all like, ohhhh boy!  I’ll never forget crunching through the frozen snow behind the bar with my girlfriend Shannon, neither of us knowing which way was up.  Crunch, crunch, crunch and the lights of the nearby houses came at us like flying saucers.  Crunch, crunch, crunch and we’d fall up, laughing at the stars below us.  It’s no wonder I don’t remember Incity Dreams playing.

For some reason I could never really nail down where Auberge actually was, although I knew it was in Quebec somewhere along a winding road.  The place was on the right after you passed a river on the left, and that’s pretty much all I could tell you**.  I was recently riding out to my buddy’s place in Wakefield and he slowed down in front of a big multi-storey condo-type apartment building and astonished me with the news that we were looking at what used to be Auberge.  I gaped and wondered if the people living there had met any of the wild-eyed ghosts that surely inhabit the space-time continuum in and around their ground-level storage units.  I sure hope they didn’t dig their own well. 

Regardless, there’s certainly no way I would have recognized anything about Auberge by looking at the modern suburban monstrosity that now stands in its place, but I could definitely feel the vibes.  Although that was probably just a contact high.  

*A bit of personal trivia: My first-ever Ottawa gig and the first time I played with my future best friend, roommate, and main musical partner JP was when The Gutterboys opened up for Incity Dreams at a benefit concert at the much-hallowed Barrymore’s Music Hall.  I sure remember them from that night.

**For the record: I drove myself there at least once, when I had to pick up our bass player at the airport in Montreal and race us both to Auberge in time for our set.  Still couldn’t tell you how to get there though.