I just got back from music directing, playing bass, and singing backup for the great Sam Moore at the Nakusp Music Festival in Nakusp, British Columbia. Nakusp, population 1,800, is on the Arrow Lakes, nestled in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
Have you heard of Nakusp? Well, I hadn't until this gig came in! It was time to break out the atlas and see where we were going. Friday we flew 4-1/2 hours from New York to Calgary, Alberta and spent the night there. For some inexplicable reason Joni Mitchell was also at our hotel that night, though we didn't actually see her.
Saturday morning at 8am we hopped a tour bus 511 km (318 miles) through the Rockies, across the Arrow Lake ferry (about a 3-mile crossing) and into beautiful downtown Nakusp. It was easily the most scenic drive we've ever taken. I fondly recalled riding a bicycle through these same mountains one summer when i was in high school.
The Music Festival is supposedly the largest in interior British Columbia. We had about 6,000 very nice celebrants helping us get our groove on. The audience size at over triple the population of the entire town told me that some folks besides us had traveled for this gig. Our performance slot was between the Yardbirds (sans Clapton, Beck or Page) and Blues Traveler.
At 8pm, still broad daylight and nearly 90 degrees outside, we got a quick line/monitor check. With the lake at our backs and high rocky peaks all around, we hit the stage burning at 8:25pm for 75 minutes. Sam was spectacular, as always, working the otherwise rock and blues festival attendees into a Soul Music frenzy as only he can.
He truly is the greatest living Soul singer on the planet bar none. By the time we hit "Soul Man" near the end of the show, the sun had set on a writhing mass of sanctified humanity. The show was too short for us and too short for the fans. But we followed the old show business adage and left them wanting more.
After the show we got straight back on the bus so we wouldn't miss the last ferry out of Nakusp. We did a midnight crossing of the lake in the deep darkness of zero civilization, the Milky Way exploding overhead in a light show that only the universe can provide.
We did the best we could in the bus bunks overnight on windy mountain roads. But I don't think anyone slept too much. Mostly we just hung out with Sam and listened to him telling stories of his decades on the road. There is a reason why he's a Soul Music legend. And we're constantly reminded of it when we get to listen to where he's been and what he's done.
Sunday morning we had a breakfast layover in a truck stop and then a 10am drop-off at the Calgary airport for a noon flight back to New York, arriving at Newark airport at 7pm EST Sunday evening. It was roughly a 20-hour journey from the stage to our home airport. We got back to NYC badly in need of a nap and a shower.
We often say that we do the gigs for free. What we get paid for is the schlep, the travel, humping the gear, and the logistics. This weekend was a clear example of this. I'm also personally in it for the tacky souvenir refrigerator magnets. I collect them from everywhere I go. They're small, portable, and geographically specific. Happily I was able to procure one from the thriving metropolis of Nakusp. Though curiously it depicts a cartoon picture of a horse's backside and contains the legend: "Nakusp, BC. Bite Me!" I'm not sure if this is designed to encourage or deter tourism.
Oddly enough, in all of my years of travel, this was my first sleeper bus trip. I fit in the bunk pretty well considering my stature. We traveled by planes, buses, vans, and ferries on this one, all in the service of Soul Music....
Your pal,
Ivan
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