TOUR TALES # 10 - SLAYING THE BORDER BEAST
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TOUR TALES # 10 - SLAYING THE BORDER BEAST
TOUR TALES # 10 – SLAYING THE BORDER BEAST If you talk to any touring band about their experiences at the border of the United States and Canada, I’m sure you’ll get a mixed bag of stories. The Canadian/ American border is a sort of legendary beast that musicians of all shapes and varieties will attempt to slay at some point or numerous points in their career. It’s kind of like that Legend of Zelda game where you can turn back time and reface the bosses in each temple again for laughs. That being said, I can’t think of many times I’ve laughed at the border. Or smiled… or anything joyous, for that matter. Pro tip: Don’t smile at the border. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.
I’m pretty sure they have these signs at the border.
Weighing in at just under 9000 km’s from tip to tip, with dozens of different crossing checkpoints, the US-Canada border can range from Kirby’s Dreamland-level simplicity to Dark Souls-level tomfuckery at any point and for no reason at all. There doesn’t need to be any reason for a border patrol officer to guide you simply and authoritatively off the rails of your dreams to spend the night (or day… or days) sitting in a dreary, windowless waiting room to dissect your every notion of who you are as a person and what little you have accomplished in your short and meaningless life. They can and will do what it takes to keep their nations protected from the many different threats that may try to infiltrate their way in. They will do it with an unseen, mightily guided hand and they will do it with as little empathy that could possibly be mustered by anything remotely resembling a humanoid creature.
Probably not the best recipient for knock-knock jokes.
This particular installment of Tour Tales finds me on that very same border, attempting to slay that bitch of a creature in the purgatory in which it resides. The year was 2014 and the road was treating my band well. We had just confirmed a month and a half of shows across North America, followed by an album release party in our hometown, followed by a mega-big European tour. We had a big label behind us and a very competent management team helming our day-to-day operations. All in all, things were looking good! I had just bought myself a house as well, which took a bit of a toll on my general health as the tour began 2 days after we moved in. My band wouldn’t let me drive the van for some reason. All the better, because I needed sleep! We played our way to the west coast and performed at the Armstrong Metal Fest in BC. We were supposed to tour back across Canada to cross into the United States at the Manitoba/ North Dakota crossing. We had spent all the time and money possible to acquire our work permits and we had a mountain of paperwork that we were one hundred percent certain would gain us access to the Land of the Brave and the Free. We could almost taste that sweet, sweet Liberty Sauce slathered atop those mountains of Waffle House pancakes.
The meals not over when I’m “full”. The meals over when I hate myself.
We aimed to cross at a low-traffic period of time; not that southern Manitoba and North Dakota get very much traffic regardless. We rolled up to the border around 2:30 in the morning with our drummer driving. I remember being fully awake, as I always am before a border crossing.
I didn’t quite catch what our drummer was being told, but I knew from the body language of the border patrol officers that we were not in for a good time. One of them was motioning us toward a massive bay garage door on a separate building beyond the border gate.
We entered and there was a team of officers awaiting us inside. They instructed us to remove our shoes and step outside of the van. We were then made to line up down the length of a massive steel table and empty our pockets for our personally assigned officers to root through. We were then taken for questioning; being escorted out of the garage with officers armed with rifles. We were told the van and trailer would both be searched with their canine units.
The best way to start a tour.
From there we were made to sit and wait in a large grey detainment area where they individually interrogated us, took our fingerprints and took mugshots of us. We were there well after the sun rose before they handed us each our belongings back, along with shiny new Homeland Security records, escorted us back to our van and then sent us back to Canada. I won’t go into details about why they wouldn’t let us across, but I will say that it is within their power to deny anyone access to the country for any reason above them just not liking the look of you or if they are in a bad mood.
Having to cancel several weeks of US shows definitely sucked and everyone’s moods were as low as they could get. We had no idea what to do as we made our way back to Manitoba.
The news quickly spread however, and a friend of the bands quickly messaged us to offer us his place to stay for a couple days while we got our bearings. We gratefully accepted his offer and got to his place where we plunked down for a few hours of sleep; completely exhausted from the entire ordeal.
I awoke to my drummer and sound tech waving burgers, beer and mead in my face. While we all slept, they had gone and prepared a massive BBQ session for the lot of us to try and get everyone back into a decent mood. What sweethearts!
So we spent the next 2 days BBQing, drinking, blasting music and going on drunk adventures around the outskirts of Winnipeg; making the best of an absolute shit situation. The bands’ morale restored, we set off on the massive 30 hour drive back to Toronto.
The moral of the story: always keep a positive attitude in every situation. Murphy’s Law will always be there to rain on your triumphs, so just know that there is nothing you can do but give your 100% regardless of the outcome.
Thank you for reading Tour Tales! Next Monday I will be back with another installment Tour Tales. To help spread the love, share this blog with your musician or traveler friends!
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