Party of One

As I mentioned in a previous post, my favourite band Piebald broke up just under 2 weeks ago. As soon as they announced the break up, and that the tour they were currently on was now their last tour ever, Matt and I bought tickets to go see them for one last time in Detroit.

I had the day off work, and Matt took the day off. We got in the car at about 11am and started driving. After stopping once and getting stuck in traffic a couple of times, we got to the border at about 3pm. We had the friendliest customs guy I’ve ever encountered (although I’m not sure the 3 cars in front of us he took about 7 mins each on to x-ray and “chat” don’t feel the same), and we were at St. Andrews Hall a couple of minutes later.

Our plan was to go to some mall in the area before the show (the tickets said 5pm, which was when we assumed the doors opened), but there were already kids lined up, so we decided to park the car beside the venue and walk around the city. The only problem is that neither of us know where anything is in Detroit, and although we’re used to all the homeless people hanging around Toronto, this wasn’t our ‘hood and we felt a bit uncomfortable. So we were back to the line by about 4pm.

Turns out the doors opened at 4:30pm, and the bands started at 5pm sharp. Sweet! (I like early shows.. turns out some of the bands didn’t.)

Rubens Accomplice made several comments about how it was sooooo early, and whined about it pretty well every time they had a chance. Despite the inflated egos (and the bass player’s need to cut his frizzy hair off.. not to be mean but I guarantee they’d be more popular if he did), they turned out to be an alright band.

At 6:15 sharp, Limbeck hit the stage (after smoking directly in front of us during the first band.. gross. I like the Smoke-Free Ontario Act). They were a fairly good alt-country band that got some feet tapping.

The next band was Steel Train who were also great - this was a good line up for once. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t mind hearing an opening band, let alone three!

Finally at 7:15, Piebald go on. Yay! They always put on a great show, and this was no exception. They played almost all my favourites, and had a great time doing it. I was worried that no one in the crowd would know them (I’m pretty sure that’s why they’re breaking up, and I’d heard of only a couple of people being into it at other shows), and while most people were there for The Format, there were still a good number of people singing along. During American Hearts, Travis climbed up on a speaker stack and threw out a bunch of those little army parachute men.

After they played, (we left before the Format played) we waited around to try to talk to Travis, just to thank him for everything. We couldn’t find him, but Aaron walked by, so we followed him outside, and chatted with him for a while. He’s a quiet talker, but a great guy. I rarely will talk to people in bands because I don’t want to bother them, but it was him keeping the conversation going. Turns out their converted Grease Not Gas van (which Aaron’s all about - he started the project) blew up the day before, and they were finishing the tour off in a rental cube van. Boo.

I’m sad that this is probably the last time I’ll see them (although reunion shows are the new cool thing!!), but I’m glad it was such a great time. I’ll always remember the 6 times I saw them in the past 5.5 years (in Buffalo the first time, then in Toronto (not necessarily in this order) at The Horseshoe, Lee’s Palace, and The Rockit, then again in Buffalo, and this last Detroit show), and I’ll always have their great albums.

Piebald, I’ll miss you. You were a great band.

Thanks for all the good times and all the great music!

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 1st, 2007 at 8:33 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.