I was at work one day in 1992 when a guy asked me if Mike called me yet to invite me to a special event he had two tickets for. I said that he hadn’t. Mike and I weren’t particularly close, so I wasn’t offended.
Over the next couple of hours I heard that Mike asked every woman in the office to go with him but they all found him creepy (sorry Mike) and said no. It turns out that he never asked his girlfriend though. I got that confirmed by his girlfriend.
Then he asked all the guys at the office. I started getting information about what this “event” was from the guys that couldn’t go. Mike had won two tickets to the Canada Day concert with a bunch of Canadian bands including Kim Mitchell, Colin James, The Tragically Hip, Sass Jordan, and a bunch more.
Then about mid-day I got the phone call. I must have been the last person in the office he hadn’t called yet.
“Hey Dave. This is Mike. Did you hear about the contest I won?”
“I heard a few things.” I wasn’t about to make this easy for him.
“Well, I’ve got two tickets and need someone to go with me.”
“I see.”
“Did you want to go?” asked Mike.
The next day he shows up at work with a huge duffel bag of goodies including a nice jacket, T-shirt, CDs, posters and other stuff I can’t remember. Plus, he handed me $200 for spending money. 1992 dollars.
The big day came and we got to the airport to board a plane with a bunch of other contest winners. It had the Molson Canadian beer logo on the side. We were flying to St. John’s Newfoundland.
The guy in charge of the trip told us to stay in our seats and the stewardesses would serve us. He didn’t want any trouble because all the beer was free.
Once we boarded, the head stewardess told us, “We’re going to be too busy to serve you. The last 6 rows of the plane have been taken out and replaced with coolers full of ice, cold beer. Help yourselves”. I quickly formulated a plan. I grabbed a beer, got in line for the bathroom. Had conversations with everyone else in line. Came out. Got another beer. Got in line for the bathroom. Rinse and repeat.
I was in heaven.
In St. John’s, they took us to the mile long road of bars they have there. One bar was closed so that they could have a party for us exclusively and whatever Canadian band was playing in the morning. And again. All the beer was free. I met Kim Mitchell and Crissy Steele. She is tiny.
The next morning, we got up and were ushered to the front of the concert. Spinal Tap opened up the Canada Day festivities. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Spinal Tap. They were on the plane with us. We were starting in St. John’s. Once Spinal Tap finished their set there, we got on the plane to Toronto, watched Spinal Tap play there from the front row, and then fly to Vancouver to watch Spinal Tap play their set there and close off the Canada Day festivities.
It was one hell of a trip, those few days around Canada Day 1992. I can’t do it justice in this little writeup. I’ve still got the CDs tucked away somewhere. Lots of pictures. My brother has the jacket which he never wore and is giving back to me, and I ended up becoming good friends with Mike’s girlfriend. Not Mike. Just his girlfriend.
But I almost completely forgot about that whole Canada Day trip. I only remembered because I was initially writing a different story for today about what happened to me 2 weeks after that trip. What happened blew my mind enough to forget about Spinal Tap and Canada Day. That story, about my idol, coming soon.