Posted by 
This ticket marks an early milestone in my concert-going career: July 6th, 1987 was the first time I ever travelled specifically to see a show.
I don’t know how I got wind of the fact that Nazareth was booked to play in Saint John but however I heard about it I know it was last-minute, show day if I’m not mistaken. I was working at my mom and dad’s muffler warehouse for the summer and we were in the middle of moving from one warehouse to another. This herculean task was happening right in the middle of our busy season and there was no way my dad was giving me a day off to go see a concert.
Likewise, there was no way I was going to let him stop me from going. No surprise there; I inherited my stubbornness from him. I told him I was going to go if I wanted to and so long as I was ready to work in the morning he had nothing to say about it. I spent my lunch break on the phone trying to find someone willing to accompany me on the adventure and ultimately enlisted my friend Jim to join me on my rock and roll journey.
Next up was transportation. Somehow we ended up choosing VIA Rail and shortly after 5pm we were on the train out of town. Of course we had yet to secure tickets to the concert. With no hard info to the contrary we were counting on tickets still being available at the box office before the show, so our worry grew with every unscheduled delay in our train’s progress, of which there were many.
Jim and I were the first ones off the train when it pulled into the Saint John station. I ran to the first taxi I saw, Jim hot on my heels.
“Take us to the Trade & Convention Centre,” I screamed. “And step on it.”
(Yes, I actually said “and step on it” to a cabbie. If this evening gives me nothing [thought I], at least I’ll have that to cherish for the rest of my life.)
And in a comic move befitting of Inspector Clouseau the taxi driver looked over his shoulder with an amused look, muttered “whatever you say,” and pulled out of the train depot’s parking lot. The cabbie drove straight across the street and pulled in front of the Trade & Convention Centre, not fifty metres from where we got in.
“Here you go fellas,” the cabbie said, barely hiding his grin, “the Trade & Convention Centre.”
I demurely paid him $2.50 for helping two strangers cross the street and we ran to the box office, securing a pair of tickets just in time for the show.
The room was set up like a beer hall, with rows of plastic-topped wooden tables running perpendicular to a temporary stage set up in the back of the room. We grabbed a couple of beers and found a place midway back off to the right.
I don’t remember anything about the opening act Bad Habit, and probably deservedly so. I’m guessing they were a local group tapped to open the gig for ‘exposure’ and maybe a case of beer. Been there.
I do remember being really excited about seeing my second (and to date, final) Nazareth concert. These guys were pretty happening at the time. Not like ‘Bob Seger’ happening or anything, but they were doing all right with a string of hits like Sunshine, Love Hurts, This Flight Tonight (I was still years from learning that it was a Joni Mitchell song), Hair Of The Dog and a bunch of others. Of course they played them all and of course the hard-drinking Irving-capped Saint John crowd were screaming for more from the first note.
A vivid memory remains of the lead singer playing (or more likely pretending to play) the guitar solo/breakdown from Hair Of The Dog on a set of amplified bagpipes. I realize now that the guitar player must have been doing the talkbox part while the frontman hammed it up with his unwieldy instrumental octopus, but at the time I was far too naïve to catch such concert trickery.
The craziest part of the evening started as soon as the encore ended. There were no night trains or late busses to Moncton and Jim and I were left to hitchhike the 150 kilometres or so home.
No problem, I thought. By this time I considered myself a very experienced hitchhiker, having thumbed from Toronto to Moncton and back again a time or two, not to mention countless trips between Moncton and Fredericton when I was seeing a girl there a few years before.
Unfortunately, I was not experienced enough to know how challenging it might be for two guys to get a ride on the highway at midnight.
Or 1am. Or 2am…or 3am.
We just could not get any rides to speak of, so we walked. And walked and walked, turning to flash our upturned thumbs and hopeful faces every time headlights loomed behind us, something that got scarcer with every passing hour. Our task kept seeming more impossible, our feet grew blisters, and still we trudged on.
I just had to get to work by 8am, especially after standing up to my dad.
About 6am we finally caught a break when a highway-side factory or plant of some kind changed over to the day shift and a flood of cars came our way. I guess someone thought we were hitchhiking home from the night shift ourselves and we got an easy ride the rest of the way to Moncton.
I have no way of knowing for sure but I bet we walked thirty, maybe forty kilometres that night. When I walked into the warehouse on time for the day’s shift I was unslept, unkempt, and exhausted. And I can’t possibly tell you how sore my feet were. I had blisters on my blisters and I could barely walk, but of course there was no way I was going to let my dad know there was anything wrong at all.
I’ll never forget it: We were moving the warehouse from one part of a building to another, and the first task of the day was to knock a hole in the cinderblock wall so that we could move everything through it. We had the hole half done and my dad told me to jump through so I could attack the wall from the other side. I crawled through the hole and jumped, both feet landing hard on the concrete floor.
Unspeakable pain shot up both of my legs. My face writhed in pain, my teeth gnashed and tears sprung quickly to my eyes. My back was to my father and it took everything in my power to not scream out in agony. After a momentary pause I turned, grabbed the sledgehammer he was holding out to me and started pounding on the wall.
I strongly suspect dad knew how much I was hurting the whole time but never let on. I wish I could ask him but I can’t; he’s gone now. Come to think of it, I don’t think we ever had the big laugh over this that we should have.
And if we did, of course we would have eventually come to the big question: Was it worth it?
At which point I would have stubbornly insisted that of course it was worth it.
Todd Man Out 