GBS has now played on three continents. Forgive for patting myself and the lads on the back here, but that’s friggin cool. The gig at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne was a triumph in many ways. The band played and sang well (with the exception of me completely forgetting the words to the last verse of Scolding Wife) and the crowd seemed to have a great night out. It was a grand way to start what I hope a future filled with many concerts in Australia.

And to think it was very near to being a complete disaster and may not have even happened at all. The trouble lay in the fact that while we were in Melbourne ready to Rock, our gear was being held under the lock and key Australian Immigration. I’ll try to explain.

You need to know that Great Big Sea is not your typical band. I don’t mean this in some boastful, exclusive kind of way. I mean that we don’t play the kinds of instruments that most bands play and we don’t have a conventional equipment list or set up. Nine out of Ten Rock and Roll bands use a standard drum kit, a couple of amplifiers, electric guitars and basses, and maybe a keyboard or two. These things are readily available from almost every music store and rental agency in the world. GBS really has none of that stuff.

We have a drum kit and I play an electric guitar on a song or two, but that’s where the similarity ends. Our instruments are primarily quiet acoustic folk instruments that we have carefully and seriously modified so we can amplify them the volumes and tones required to play big festivals and hockey rinks. We have special microphones to attach to tiny tin whistles and mandolins to make them sound the way they do in big concerts. We use some very uncommon instruments, like tenor guitars and bodhrans. We use three different kinds of bouzouki’s in our show, for frig sakes.

So when our own gear does not show up. It is really difficult or impossible to get what we need from a local supplier. You know what I’m saying? Most Urban Music shops have a shite load of guitars and amps but you try running around Melbourne at 6 pm trying to find a low Celtic whistle in the keys of F and C. Or try getting three button accordions modified so Bob can play them upside down and backwards (which he does, you know). Or try explaining to a smirky know-it-all dude working at the Guitar store that a five-string and a four-string banjo are actually quite different.

Well that’s what I was doing at 5:45 pm last night. Our gear, you see had been flown from Canada and made it to Melbourne in plenty of time for the show. But recently there had been an incident where some African band had inadvertently brought some bugs in their unfinished wooden drums and Australian Customs is on high alert. So as our wooden acoustic instruments were going through their routine Customs check yesterday morning, they were deemed risky and were put in Quarantine. Yes Quarantine. Our stuff was in lock down and Customs would not release it till some high end fella showed up to make sure we had not smuggled in the Great Canadian beetle or something. When the Customs office closed for the day at 5pm, our stuff was still under wraps. We were hooped.

The promoter wondered if we would cancel the show. I said, Sir, we played a gig 10 hours after our tour bus flipped over. There is no way we came all this way to not play. If we have to do 90 minutes of Shanties, that’s what we’ll do. The promoters and local folks were awesome. We begged borrowed and rented two acoustic gtrs, the only button accordion in Melbourne, I think, and I bought the last pair of whistles and harmonicas at the local music store. Sean was going to tip a bongo on its side and use it for a bodhran. We line checked some of the stuff just before doors and we were ready to dive in for better or for worse.

You should have heard some of the chat in the dressing room, joking about our predicament. There was not a glum face in there, seriously. I was so delighted to see everyone rallying for the cause. Now, we still had a few verbal jabs at the Quarantine guys. Some one, ok me, ranted.

‘Does anyone else find it really ironic that they are worried that we might be trying to smuggle dangerous bugs into Australia? Isn’t this where dangerous things live? We just left the Canadian winter, where not a single bug has been alive since November. There’s 30 cms of snow on my back step. What could possibly be in my guitar case that would survive a mili-second in the Australian Bush or Outback? Smuggling dangerous insects into Australia is like smuggling pot into Amsterdam…..’ and on I went.

I was joking, of course, trying to keep the mood light. I’m sure the good folks at Customs had the best of intentions and know exactly what precautions to take. And in the end I should thank them as, just in the nik of time as the opening act was about to finish, an exhausted promoter rep burst though the back door saying, they came back in to clear the stuff. The truck will be here in ten minutes!

Our Brit and Andy and Johnny got our stuff on stage in record time and GBS hit the stage at 9:36 for a slated 9:30 show. Yes B’y.

The rest is history. Our first gig in Australia was awesome for many reasons, but in the end mostly because it was in Australia. Finally.

GBS. Three Continents. Friggin’ Cool. Thank You.

Cheers,
Alan

Man, the world is smaller than it once was. No doubt. Less than two days ago I was in the winter in St John’s Newfoundland. I am about 2 hours away from touching down in summer on the other side of the planet. I did nothing to accomplish this travel but sit down and watch movies and read a Wayne Johnson book. Truly amazing.

Now, I confess that my previously mentioned Million Mile Status with Air Canada afforded me a very reasonably priced Executive Seat so I could lie down when I wanted, and I can smell them cooking my posh breakfast as I type. Hmm I wonder if I would feel so good about this if I were sitting in Seat 56K? I’ve done the flight to Aus many times is many different ways and travel classes, and can never really recall hating it.

I travelled to Australia for the first time six or seven years back to work with Russell and the TOFOG guys on a CD. I remember sitting with Russell and some of his gang in Toronto as they were working on the Cinderella Man film. Russell’s long time friend and fitness dude Spud asked me if I’d ever been to their home country. I explained that I had not as I feared the flight would be too hard. ‘What do you mean hard?, asked Spudd. ‘Its not that hard. You ever had stomach flu? Well its not that hard’.

I’ve never forgotten that advice. ‘Hard’ or ‘too hard’ are terms we throw around too easily. They will always be very relative terms, and that’s all. I flew to Aus on a puddle jumper of a flight in the cheapest class available a few months later. I think my itinerary was St John’s, Toronto, Calgary, Los Angeles, Fiji, Sydney. And Spudd was right. It wasn’t that hard. It was harder than taking a bath, but way less hard than hauling wood in Maddox Cove at 6 am on Saturday mornings on two hours sleep in the middle of February. And I did that many many times.

I’m not sure what my point is, and trust me I realize that the guy sitting in Seat 1K who just chose pancakes over the omelets, is probably not the guy to be talking about what is hard and what is not. But I think I’m just wondering if our perceptions of what is hard and easy, possible and impossible, likely and doubtful, are all too often skewed to the wrong side.

Anywhoo…yeha..GBS is finally getting to play in Australia. I really hope we go over well at the shows, as I’ve long thought that the kind of night-out we often deliver would be very welcomed here. I hope I’m right. If you are in Aus, please check us out in Melbourne on Tuesday, Sydney on Thursday, and Byron Bay over the weekend.

Much ado in the hours before I got on this plane as I sat with the guys from Universal Records Canada to plan for some marketing and promotional strategies for the release of the CD. I also spent a bunch of time at CMT with the amazing Joel Stewart and his team reviewing the ‘Live at Revival’ show set to air right around the CD launch.

Got a nice email from Sonic Entertainment folks saying that the presale tix for the Tour in May basically Sold Out right away. I am very grateful for this. The Public Sale would have happened five or six hours ago while I was on this flight. So I have no idea if it went as well, but my fingers are crossed. Love to see you at the shows in May as me and the Alan Doyle Band (Jaysus that sounds weird) make our way across much of North America. Thanks so much for all the advance hype about the shows and for those of you who’d like to pick up tickets, you can follow some links at

www.alandoyle.ca/tour

Kinda bummed that Russell will not be here for this GBS’s first trip to Aus. He’s been such a big supporter and it’s a shame he won’t be here to sing a tune with us. Looking forward to seeing some of the TOFOG cast and crew while here. Great fellas one and all.

It’s Saturday for me and Friday for many of you back in North America and Western Europe. Have a wonderful yesterday.

Cheers,
Alan

I’ve had today circled on my calendar for quite a while. Today, the first single from ‘Boy on Bridge’ is available for public consumption. I confess to a bit of nervous energy around the house as much rides on how the single is received by folks at home and at radio. I’ll have a few meetings with the labels and the like this week and touring and video budgets etc all seem to be easier to get if the initial response is positive.

So, if you’ll pardon my shameless self-promotion, please go here…

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/ive-seen-a-little-single/id511682121

Here you can buy the song “I’ve seen a Little”. It’s a tune I wrote in Nashville in with Gordie Sampson and Troy Verges. I wanted to write a real simple Country/Rock tune that almost any band could play real quickly. I suppose I wanted it to hearken back to the Records I loved when I was a young teen. Back then, I loved John Cougar and Tom Petty especially. Seemed like every band I was in played those tunes at every dance and bar, and everyone loved it.

Lyrically, the song is really a summary for the whole solo project. I speaks about wanderlust and a live every moment kind of energy, as you guys have probably already heard me sing about. But this one goes a little further to talk about not being satisfied with what’s already been accomplished and about making a conscious choice to not rest on one’s laurels.

“It ain’t what you done, it’s what you’re gonna do”

Thanks in advance for picking up the Single and for requesting at your fav radio station, and for spreading the word in general. I am very grateful.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the big announcement of the Boy on Bridge Tour Dates.

Cheers,
Alan