Edmonton

The spotlight has terrified the best of them. Jim Morrison, Jerry Garcia, Carly Simon… It has also terrified some of the worst of them - like me.

At age 46, I’ve picked up the guitar again. I’d played in a band in my teens back at North Vancouver’s Argyle Senior Secondary School. I’d even proudly earned a school letter doing it. (The school’s initials notwithstanding.)

And here I am sweating under the lights in a nightclub again for the first time in almost 28 years. After marriage, kids, jobs, mortgages, dogs, cats and minivans, for tonight, anyway, I’m struggling with fear to be a guitar player.

I’m not alone. On stage with me at the Highrun Club in Edmonton’s east end are four other guys with a similar desire to go somewhere they haven’t been in a long time.

We’ve been through five practices together and tonight we find out if we can do it again.

April 20, 1999 - Practice 1

I’m so nervous I’m almost sick. The last time I plugged in an electric guitar with other guys my hair was at least six inches longer and my belt six inches shorter.

At the door of Axe Music, I’m greeted by our coach Kevin McDade. He’s been a pro much of his working life and will ease us into playing again.

Strange to me, he’s also nervous. This is the first time he’s done this, too. The Weekend Warriors program was developed in the United States in the early ‘90s by Peavey, the instrument manufacturer, and Skip’s Music Store of San Francisco. This is the first session ever in Edmonton.

Bob Layton, the famous CHED radio reporter, ITV commentator and wedding deejay, is standing at the front desk signing a cheque for $80.25 ($75 plus GST) to cover the cost of the program which will include four two-hour practices and a gig (though in technical musician jargon, I believe a gig is when someone pays you). Luckily, because we are first and Layton couldn’t make one, we end up with five practices.

Bob is our bass player. He has years of experience. Despite being the oldest member of the band at 55 and the only guy to show up in dress pants, he really rocks. If Layton misses a beat, I sure don’t detect it.

We pick out brand new guitars in the music store’s showroom. Bob says his wife is afraid he’ll bring home something horribly expensive. Thinking about that, I put down the $1,000 Peavey and pick up a $600 Fender Telecaster.

Downstairs in a practice room lined with speakers we tune up, plug in and try Lynyrd Skynyrd’s early ‘70s rock anthem Sweet Home Alabama. It’s no fair to pick songs written after my last band broke up. Is it D-C-G or D-G-C? If I turn down the volume low enough, who will know?

Then we do a blues jam for a few minutes, stopping only after our drummer Terry "T" Hendry begins to get cramps. Later we swing through Kansas City, the Rolling Stones’ version of Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away and attempt House of the Rising Sun.

As our 8 p.m. quitting time rolls around, we’re really warmed up. Dave Owen, the other guitar player, is so pumped he hoots for joy. Pretty good for a 42-year old. I’ve become so relaxed I have to fight an urge to pretend I’m Jimmy Page.

All too soon we have to go home. Bob has to get home to bed. He gets up at 2:30 a.m. to go to work.

True story, later that same evening:

Mrs. Layton: "Bob, why are you smiling so much? You didn’t buy an expensive new bass did you?"

Bob: "No. It’s just that I feel so alive!"

April 27, 1999 - Practice 2

We’ve all been practising for a week and what a difference it makes!

Doug Price, our long-haired singer and harmonica player, is a 52-year-old welding foreman in a structural engineering shop by day. Because he’s single, he says he spends all his spare time jamming in blues clubs by night.

During the week he’s transcribed all of the lyrics onto huge song sheets at least a metre and a half long. In our band it’s not unusual to have trouble with small print.

Dancing and clapping, he really gets into our version of B.B. King’s Shake It Up and Go and the rest of us follow him:

"Mama caught a chicken,

Thought it was a duck,

Put it on the table with its legs sticking up…"

Then - and I swear this is true - for a few seconds during the guitar solo I feel like I’m 18 again. There I am with my eyes closed, playing guitar with my high school buddies at a sock hop back in 1971.

It feels good to feel young - very good.

May 4, 1999 - Practice 3

In high school I played in a band called Malachai. We weren’t exactly church-goers and didn’t know a prophet from a profit, but for some stupid reason we thought the name sounded cool, so Malachai (as in messenger of God) it was. Almost 30 years later, it’s still embarassing.

It’s time for name that band," Kevin announces.

Terry suggests Conditioned Response.

I enter a name stolen from fellow Journal reporter Dave Finlayson who belongs to a certain fraternity with the moniker SPOOF, for Society for the Preservation Of Old Farts.

Other suggestions included Honky Tonk Fools, Warp Speed, Continuum and Never Banned.

McDade pops the names into Dave’s beret for a draw and true democracy rules:

Conditioned Response it is.

I have no idea what it means.

May 10, 1999 - Practice 4

There’s not a lot of chit-chat at a band practice. We occasionally spend about five minutes on the loading dock when one of the guys needs a cigarette. This week it was nice the way we started to relax. I notice Bob has also worn jeans.

This is a tough practice. Of our five songs, two in particular are challenging.

Not Fade Away has a straightforward Bo Diddley beat, but (and this is a rather big but), we’ve learned that Keith Richards is a deceptive guitarist. The chord changes all come slightly ahead of the lyrics (or Mick Jagger starts late, I’m not completely sure which). We also have slowed down the tempo of Hank Williams’ Honky Tonk Blues. It helps.

We turn down our amps. At 18, I only played at one volume - 10. Now anything above four or five produces this indistinguishable wall of sound.

At least we’re still smiling.

May 18, 1999 - Practice 5

Dress rehearsal feels more like death rehearsal.

The songs drag out in fits and starts. We’re all kind of looking at each other wondering what’s going on. I’m having a hard time getting my fingers moving.

The pressure seems to be mounting a bit. Dave doesn’t appear pleased when we stray from the path. Doug is singing full out and frantically making hand signals which I can’t get. Terry is doing his best and Bob, good-hearted Bob, just keeps plugging away on the bass.

Advice flies. Do this here. Do that there. But one thing for certain, says Doug: "Never stop playing no matter how badly we mess up."

It’s the one thing I remember.

May 20, 1999 - The Big Gig

Stage fright is physically getting to me. I won’t get into details.

I ask Bob how he’s handling it. He’s not bothered in the least.

"I’ve done this about 1,200 times before," he says. In his early days in radio he made so little money he had to start a band to make ends meet.

By this point the adrenalin is running so high, Kevin leads us through a warm-up song to "check the sound system" and, I suspect, to calm our nerves a bit.

It works. Playing to the Highrun’s nearly empty sea of pool tables early in the evening feels great.

Now all we need is an audience.

By our 8:30 start, wives, sons, old friends, co-workers, bosses and bosses of bosses appear to be having a good time, a few beers and nachos awaiting the grand performance.

The lights dim. We launch into Kansas City - slightly screwed up - but we don’t stop. Kevin introduces us. Enthusiastic applause. Wow!

Shake It Up and Go, goes great. The audience claps and hoots during my solos, but I’m too stunned to figure out why till somebody explains it to me later.

Besides, I just can’t bring myself to look at the crowd.

The smoke machine engulfs our drummer Terry during Not Fade Away. But no big mistakes. Mmm?

When I blow the intro to Going to New York, I imagine Doug saying NEVER STOP. But the song is in shambles.

I signal the guys to break the rule. Then, realizing we’re the grateful dads and not the Grateful Dead, we chuckle about it and the replay becomes one of the best songs of the night.

And I think my playing may have reached a personal best with the final number Honky Tonk Blues.

A standing ovation.

Thank you, Edmonton!

Unbelievable and probably undeserved, but accepted.

We launch into Blue Suede Shoes as our encore. I wish we had practised it.

Feeling somewhat dazed, I put my Telecaster away.

Would I do this again?

Let’s just say that a couple of days later my loaner guitar is no longer borrowed.

I made the decision and bought it.