Jivewires - Highlights

Highlights

The Blues Brothers:

In October '94, we were blasting through a gig at our favorite local live venue, The Rainbow. At the beginning of the last set a huge group of large men came in. At first we thought perhaps a football team had shown up or something. But no, it was a phalanx of bodyguards accompanying Dan Ackroyd, Jim Belushi and Matt "Guitar" Murphy! They were in town with the Blues Brothers for a special benefit show for Carleton University, Ackroyd's Alma Mater. We had heard they'd be in town, but no one expected them to actually show up at the Rainbow after their show at the National Arts Center.
In frontman Steve's words: "Performing on stage, I hadn't spotted any of these famous guys and so I had no idea they were in the room. After a run through "Jump To Conclusions", a hand came up from the dance floor together with the comment, "You guys are hot". I shook the man's hand, thanked him and started to count off the next song when I realized the hand was still up and waving in my direction. I looked down at the man again and that's when I realized it was Jim Belushi! He said, "Ask Dan to get up and jam". I felt a little underqualified to ask Dan Ackroyd to perform with our band but Jim kept insisting with a big grin on his face, so I asked. The next thing we know, Dan and Jim are on-stage with Matt Guitar Murphy asking if he can borrow our guitar player's axe. The answer was, of course, yes and he strapped on the guitar and started plucking out one of the best R&B grooves we ever heard".
We took off with him into the song and everyone in the place had a wild good time, with everyone in band taking solos and bouncing off the seriously fine groove supplied by Mr. Murphy. They departed into the night as suddenly as they had arrived, leaving behind a rather star-struck crowd and band!

Kathleen Edwards:

Last year we had a real treat in that our horn section was hired by Kathleen Edwards, who overnight has become another in the long list of big names from the Ottawa area. Her career has rocketed off and last year she was named as a "performer to watch in 2003" by Rolling Stone and in January 2003 she appeared on Letterman! We had a great time arranging horn lines for some of her fine material and performed on a few of her concert appearances with her kick-ass band. And now she's hit the big time..! Check it out at kathleenedwards.com

Largest Crowd:

In May '95 The Jivewires had the good fortune to headline the opening night of the Bath Music Festival. This is a large, prestigious week long music festival held primarily in the common grounds beneath Bath's famous "mile circle". On the night we played, the attendance was estimated at 25,000 people. Yes, it was a rush to perform for so many people, and we responded to the crowd's energy and had a very fine time indeed. Before we started we were told in no uncertain terms that we were there by the grace of the owners of the townhouses and that the show must end at 11 pm, when the fireworks started. Now, it's rather hard to judge to the exact second when a live performance of anything will actually end and you don't want the fireworks exploding during the last little bit of the show. So we mapped it out as best as we could, crossed our fingers and went onstage. As we blasted through the show, the momentum rose and we had the great fortune to be sitting on the last big note of the last song just as the first burst of color exploded over the stage. Then the whole sky exploded into bursts of fire and sound. Definitely a dramatic concert ending as we stood there watching with everyone else, pounding on that last note a few extra moments...

Smallest Crowd:

On one of our tours of the UK we were booked into concert hall in Huddersfield, a nice town in the midlands. We arrived in the afternoon, set up and got ready to play the gig which was part of an ongoing series of concerts paid for by the UK government in an old firehall auditorium. Turns out because there was no financial pressure, no-one had spent any time or money actually advertising the show or even the concert series itself! By the time we got on-stage, there were a total of 2 people in the crowd! 2! The organizers were very apologetic and told us we didn't have to play if we didn't want to, but we decided to go ahead and play 2 songs for each person in the audience. After 4 tunes and the wildest round of applause two people and a tech crew can make, we played an encore, tore down and made for the nearest pub. Before we left, however, both people in the audience bought a CD. So on one hand it was the smallest crowd we ever played to, but on the other hand, it was the only time we've ever sold a CD to 100% of any audience! Nice folks in the midlands, they could see we needed to unwind and were well acquainted with the process.

Coldest Gig:

OK! Here's a great one: New Year's Eve '97, The band headlined the closing of Kitchener Ontario's annual "First Night" concert. In the preceding week before the show the temperature had been around freezing or above, downright balmy for that region of the planet at the end of December. Nevertheless, on New Year's Eve as we arrived, the temperature plummeted to around minus 15 Celsius! Now, this is normal winter weather in Canada and not a big deal except the organizers of the show didn't have enough stage heating, perhaps because of the warm weather which disappeared into cold air. So when we got on stage at 11 pm, stage heating consisted of two propane heaters (designed to heat a fully enclosed two man work tent) and a long glowing red heating element running the length of the stage about 20 feet up in the front light rack! We began to play but found that our instruments were basically frozen. Steve had to blow into his trombone for 5 to 10 seconds to just get the slide to unstick before he could play a note on any particular tune! Frozen fingers were clumsy on trumpets and saxophones and even worse on frozen cold guitar and bass strings! Not to mention the way metal becomes "sticky" as it freezes and adheres to the moisture on lips or fingers! Also, drumsticks are rather hard to hold while wearing big mittens! So much for timing and finesse... We stumbled through our first couple of songs to a wonderfully forgiving audience and realized that we couldn't realistically continue the show, both because of the cold and our uncontrollable laughter at our predicament. We managed to last about 25 minutes before throwing in the toque! That cold Canadian air hits us before it hits anyone else, you know. Hot toddy's all 'round after that one!

Highest Gig:

The "Windows On The World Restaurant", the beautiful venue on the 106th floor of The World Trade Center, ran a wild Saturday night swing series for many years. It was our good fortune to be included in the lineup and we finally played our first show way up there on October 21st, 2000. As we began to play we could see that the crowd was definitely there to party and people were dancing and swinging each other around like crazy. We started off the night with a few of our usual covers and didn't get much of a reaction. After a few more tunes our swing rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" came up in the setlist. This seemed to create some interest so we steamed on into our original material and BAM! - everyone went nuts! After a few more the whole room was chanting "more originals, more originals". New York, New York, it's a wonderful town...

Longest "Day" On The Road:

OK! You've all heard musicians and entertainers laughingly complain about how tough it is "on the road". Well, it's no joke sometimes, and this will give you an idea about just how much people go through to get to your town and perform. On one of our tours of the U.K., we had a very tight time window between a gig one night at the Dover St. Wine Bar in London's Mayfair district and and a gig the following night at the Rotterdam Pub in Belfast. Of course, not being rich and famous we had to drive, so our day went like this:
10 am Get up
12 pm Eat lunch
4 pm Drive to Mayfair from the Docklands
5 pm Set up gear, soundcheck
6 pm Eat dinner
9 pm Play the gig at Dover St.
1 am Tear down at Dover St, load truck with gear
2 am Start drive to Stranraer, Scotland
9 am Breakfast in little town in Scotland, the owner saw us looking in the window and graciously opened the pub!
11 am Arrive Stranraer, Scotland
1 pm Depart Stranraer on ferry for Larne, Northern Ireland
4 pm Arrive Larne, Northern Ireland
6 pm Arrive at Rotterdam Pub, Belfast, set up and soundcheck
7 pm Eat kick-ass home made stew provided by Rotterdam Pub
9 pm Play gig at Rotterdam Pub
1 am Finish gig, tear down, load truck
2 am Unload gear at hotel, check in
3 am Try to sleep!

OK, so we're crazy....