nerolog

[Velvet]

nerolog, Stardate 04232410

nero @ Mavericks/Café Dekcuf, Ottawa, Ontario

Fortunately, the occasional pangs of nostalgia I feel when I’m missing my former life as a band manager are intermittently interrupted by word of a reunion weekend. From my perspective there is no rhyme or reason to it, just an email or a phone call on a random day, and the next thing you know I’m calling bars and writing press releases. Of course every time this happens it’s quite possibly the Last Time Ever, so it’s a little bit magical each time it happens. Well, a few months back my inbox treated me to another surprise and off we go!

As a promoter there is no happier chore than to post about a nero reunion on jambands.ca. The response is invariably positive and immediate, the excitement is obvious and the ticket sales aren’t too shabby either! nero and jambands.ca (nee phishsanctuary) have always co-existed in my mind; I became aware of both around the same time, joined up with both around the same time, and watched both grow in tandem. To this day a single post on jambands.ca is enough to sell out two nights of nero at Café Dekcuf inside a week, with no other media outlet involved. Ticket orders come in from Guelph, Toronto, Boston, London; thanks to this website the press release was just a formality.

And finally the weekend was upon us. In an effort to accommodate those that are no longer in daily connection to our own private media outlet, the first night was moved downstairs to double the floorspace and triple the legal capacity. As someone mentioned, the sight of a ticketless fan like Whitey left standing outside, feebly air-guitaring to the muffled sounds seeping out the door was enough to warrant carrying all the gear upstairs and enduring twice the soundchecks, plus it would give us two distinctly different experiences, which isn’t a bad thing.

Speaking of gear, I tells ya, Dave has gained a bit of weight over the years. I think he holds stock in SBK – the guy walks in with a guitar case and thirty-seven flight cases in various shapes and indiscriminant levels of incarriability. Well that’s not entirely true: he has two guitar cases. To watch him set up all the gear is an exercise in unfathomability – imagine watching someone put together a puzzle depicting the cockpit of a Boeing 747 with a casual matter-of-factness that requires only the occasional glance at the pieces as they fit effortlessly together into a cyborg palette of flashing lights reminiscent of the Milky Way. One more rack mount and he’ll need to winch himself in and out of his rig.

And all the while Jay warms up behind him on his four-piece kit proving that he’s never stopped practicing and Chris boomba-snap-pops away alternating between his Fender and his Modulus and I start to feel right at home again. The soundcheck is long and thorough and the room sounds big.

Back home to watch the Canadiens survive to play another day and when we arrive back at the bar there is a nice crowd collected outside socializing. And when I say a nice crowd I mean a crowd of nice people. Hugs, handshakes and backslaps all ‘round, smiles and joints flowing freely on Rideau Street as everyone primes for the show(s). Inside the bar is busy as more familiar faces from shows past intermingle with one another. The crowd is the same, if a few years older, but this was no time to act your age; the Jager shots were flying off the shelves and I saw more than one pupil the size of a black hole.

Around 11pm the band jumped onstage with their own Jager shots and off we went, lulled in to the weekend with a slow grinder, a rare (I suppose they’re all rare now) resurrection of Come Together. Some wonky uber-over-doubly-saturated guitar seemed to bring the tune to a fairly abrupt end but following up immediately with Zedonk brought in the heavy in a hurry. The set went into some keyboard-heavy jams and kept the crowd at the front moving before closing with the most Mettalica-esque nero gets with Medicated.

Of course the bar all but cleared out during set break, giving people an oppourtunity to chat well below 98 decibels whilst burning enough sweetgrass to warrant powwow status. I ducked out for my third slice of pizza of the day at the 1-4-1 next door and managed to appear hammered enough for the pizza guy to try and rip me off. Ah, it was just a ruse! As usual, my drunken-ness was just an act to throw people off guard. I set the pizza guy straight and headed back to the bar where I kept ‘drinking’ 50’s at a seemingly alarming rate (wink-wink).

After leading the crowd in a rousing version of Happy Birthday in honour of the anniversary of the birthing of Chris Buote I stood back as the band launched into their ‘hit’, 401 Theme, and for possibly the first time in the evening I didn’t have to admit to Bradm that I didn’t know the name of whatever song the band was playing. With each song the band got better and better, sounding more confident and solid, until by the encore they ripped through Miko Mard like they had never gone away. I mentioned to someone that it felt like they had played Guelph the night before and were off to Montreal the next night. It was like we all stepped back in time together.

In true nero fashion I didn’t get to sleep until well into the daytime, or was that the next night? which also fits into the “in true nero fashion†category. I went to Café Dekcuf around 6pm for soundcheck to find Dave rebuilding his Labyrinth of Loop following up on the 3am carry-up of gear. The sound upstairs at Dekcuf is wonderful, and with an especially attentive tech the band soon sounded just like they always used to. By 7:30 they were raging through a few numbers when I scurried off to watch the Sens wrap up their inglorious season appropriately.

Another slice before hitting the bar and I find almost the same crew up there again, still smiling and hugging and slapping each other’s backs. nero went on and picked things up right where they left off the night before. It was like the warmup of night one carried straight through to night two, and again the band got better with every song. The first set was packed with material familiar to the crowd: Tonto’s, Condor, Downside Up, Effer, and then they closed the set with a killer version of Pink Floyd’s Young Lust, with Chris on vocals and Jay spot on with the harmonies in the chorus.

Set two bounced between raging and dancey/trancey culminating in a killer Darius (which is a raging dancey trancer) before treating us to an encore that was totally old-school, a Pumpkin Song just like they used to do it every Tuesday night in this very room in front of about nine people, each and every one a member of the newly launched phishsanctuary.

For possibly the last time we spilled out into the street and scurried off to any number of afterparties, dozens of eyes wide for the sunrise (yeah, it was the second night after all) and just as many cheeks sore from two straight nights of smiling. Another successful reunion, another happy gathering of great people, another weekend of pure, unadultered, just-like-it-used-ta-be awesome fun.

And now I go back to waiting for that unexpected email again.

[Booche]

nerolog fail for not mentioning Lauzon and Punk were on the opposite sides of where they normally played. This was old-school Shane setup.

Just mucking with you Velvet. Thanks for all you did, again. And thanks to the boys of course.

[Northern Wish]

Of course the bar all but cleared out during set break, giving people an oppourtunity to chat well below 98 decibels whilst burning enough sweetgrass to warrant powwow status.

You. Slay. Me.

Thanks to all who made it one of the most fun weekends in recent memory....

[Velvet]

It's all there Booche, but some of it remains between the lines.

[phorbesie]

Great stuff....great story and a fun weekend of music! Thanks so much nero

[Rossolee]

Great nerolog Todd! Great weekend of music and friends!! Thanks nero!!!

[Schwa.]

I blame Punk.

[mark tonin]

Todd - thanks for the nerolog about the weekend ... much appreciated and a very enjoyable read!

I hope you get another one of those emails at some point in the future.

Peace, Mark

[questcequecest?]

I too enjoyed the nerolog. Thanks Velvet!

[thomson]

Does this mean all I have to do is send Velvet an e-mail and there'll be another nerounion?

Thanks for the log; sorry to have missed the shows, parties and powwows.