What a friggin day


Weatherwise, I swear this was the screwiest day I have seen in ages.

I watched the forecasts all week long, torturing myself about the prospects for a decent day for our gig at Victory Square. The forecast varied day by day, station by station. As with any typical Vancouver day with unsettled weather, there was no predicting exactly what would happen.

It soon became apparent that there was no getting out of the forecast of rain for Sunday. I decided on a course of action. It could rain like hell in the morning, then clear up by noontime. Everyone would be happy. That was the best plan I could muster.

Saturday night we played a private function, not one of our best outings. I was beat when I got home. My daughter had one of those nights where she crawled into our bed in the middle of the night, meaning nobody got a decent night's sleep. I had two separate dreams about playing a jazz festival gig with guys I used play with 30 years ago, having arguments with the piano players onstage, the dreams ending with them walking off midset. Not a restful night at all and morning came way too soon.

The rain was coming down so hard around 7:00am that it woke me up. Not to worry - it cleared up by noon. My evil master plan was working to perfection.

Throughout the morning, I had a slight melancholy feeling, partially due to lack of sleep, but also thinking about Banff. The Maria Schneider concert would have been last night, and by this time, everyone would be leaving, going back to the real world. The magic would be over for another year, all too soon.

From my practice room window, I can look out the window over Georgia Strait almost all the way down to Victoria. At noon, the blue sky was starting to come out overhead, but I didn't want to acknowledge the black cloud blowing up the Strait from the southwest. At 1:00, we had to do some shopping in Richmond and when we left the store, it was pissing again. By the time we got back home, a 5-minute drive, it was nice again, with the sun peeking out.

I called Coat as soon as he got offstage from his Coat Cooke Trio gig, to see how it was at Victory Square. He said the rain had come out partway through his set, but about a third of the people stuck it out. They all split as soon as the music was over, but came back for the next act.

I spent the next hour getting ready for the gig, ignoring the next black cloud racing up the Strait. At 4:00, there was no ignoring it.

The cloud was huge and directly overhead when I heard the first crack of lightning. fuck

Then the hail started. About the size of peas, the ground in our neighbourhood was suddenly entirely white. double fuck

Then the deluge began, and there was a small river running down our street. fuckety fuck fuck

I figured the gig was toast. The rain was was so intense, I thought there would be no way anyone would stay in Gastown. But I had to go down, at least to show my face and justify getting paid. My mood was about as black as the cloud lingering overhead. There was no promise of a break, looking out to the southwest.

We all piled into the car, my family being game enough to tag along, rain still coming down in buckets. Partway downtown, Cassandra spotted a break in the clouds off to the west. As we crossed the Cambie St. bridge, the rain started easing up. A couple more minutes to Victory Square, and it was tolerable. It was a dramatic change over the course of the 20 minutes it took to get from home to the gig.

As we started our set, it was down to a very light drizzle, and then the sun came out bit by bit. It was a very neat effect, being inside the tent, seeing the rain backlit by the emerging sunlight. Then suddenly, we needed sunglasses. The warmth from the change in weather was most welcome as my horns were very cold starting off, which made them a bit finicky as far as the tuning.

The set itself was one of our best ever, and even Leaf, which has been so problematic for us, sounded great. A sizeable audience somehow materialized, and were very enthusiastic. Wanda was on top of her game and did a great job entertaining the crowd. Our pianist, the estimable Mr. Crisp It, played his ass off, what ass he has left. Mark was solid on bass, and we've really been spoiled to have had Tom on drums as often as we have in the last month. We really didn't want to stop at the appointed time, but we were given the sign and that was that.

The picture here belies all of the meterological drama of the preceeding hours. In the end, it was all well worth it. What a friggin day.