Road Trip to Hell

Touring Canada with a rock band is not as glamorous as it might seem. For every group that tours Canada by plane or fancy bus and stays in first class hotels there are thousands that tour in beat up old cars and trucks and stay in less than lovely quarters. This is the story of one band that toured Canada. Everything is true. The names of persons and clubs have been changed to protect the innocent.

Touring Canada in the dead of winter hints of insanity or desperation. For the band Shadrack it was a little of both. Touring Canada seemed like an adventure but it also seemed like a good way to make some money. Canadian clubs paid good money to bands from the States. So, on a wintry day in early February the band, a soundwoman, two children, two dogs and me as road manager set off from Spokane to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The band—guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, and chick singer put its equipment in a battered old truck and the rest of us traveled by car. My husband was the bass player.

We spent the night in a town with the beautiful name of Moose Jaw in a little hotel. The next morning we had our first Canadian egg—a pallid, sick looking, dimly yellow thing.

We drove all day in caravan and passed through mile after mile after mile of prairie land, relieved only by the occasional impoverished Indian reservation or the flames of gas vented from oil fields. After dark we finally arrived in Saskatoon. The band was to play in the large bar part of a Chinese restaurant. Bone tired, we unloaded all the equipment, the amps, speakers, PA, mike stands, etc. Then we saw our living quarters above the restaurant. 

They consisted of a large room with a kitchen and a series of boxlike bedrooms whose walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling. A sort of Dilbert like place when home from the office. Oh, well.

The next day we were able to see Saskatoon and it was beautiful with dry, crunchy, squeaky snow and sharp blue skies. It was 20 degrees below zero, the coldest any of us had ever experienced. Fortunately we had all purchased engine oil heaters and we all were plugged in. We also had boots, down jacket, gloves, hats, and ski masks.