101404 The Slip/Stephen Franke & Noises from the Toolshed, Toronto, ON

October 14th, 2004 was the first night of a a three-day run seeing The Slip.  I have absolutely no recollection of these concerts whatsoever, and if not for finding ticket stubs for the shows in Toronto, Hamilton and Montreal I would never, ever know that I attended these shows.

But I did, and the first one was at the El Mocambo in Toronto, where The Rolling Stones famously recorded Love You Live in the upstairs room in front of a room full of surprised contest winners on a fateful day back in 1977.  If I squeeze my memory really, really hard I can guess that this show probably happened in the much nicer downstairs room, but even a tidbit that small likely requires a bit of imagination*.

Not that the shows weren’t probably quite good…The Slip were a great band and I welcomed any chance to see them.  There were times when this band just completely blew my mind, and any of these three nights could have been one (or more) of those times.

What I do know is that nero had just broken up, an event that for me was equal parts disappointing and life-altering, with a healthy dose of free time thrown in.  Being part of a band – either as member or manager – is like running a business, and running a business requires a lot of time commitment.  With the band on hold I could suddenly take off for a long weekend on a whim and that’s probably what happened here.  I’m guessing I got put on the guest list for these shows as well – nero played with The Slip on several occasions including opening a string of shows in the northeast US – which would have helped me afford the run financially, and I doubtlessly took advantage of couch space along the way as well.

nero had played this room a few times themselves, so I’m sure I spent at least a bit of the evening in melancholic reflection.  It would be on such evenings that I would see legions of people hunkering down for a weekend run of nero shows in southern Ontario.  It looked fun (though not as fun as being on the road as manager) so I’m guessing that jumping on The Slip train for these Canadian shows seemed a natural thing to do.

And I’m sure it was a heck of a lot of fun.

*Rereading this a couple of years later I have either discovered or created a rather distinct memory of the band playing on the downstairs stage.  Which, of course, proves nothing.