at which cale & band walk off stage due to bad sound then return after most of the audience has left & play a 30 min pablo picasso
1. So the band is out there cookin'. Sounding great to us. But Cale looks disturbed. He keeps pointing to his ear. Constantly distracted, looking at the sound people, trying to communicate with them while playing. It was definitely taking away from what sounded like a killer set to us. But Cale just looked like he was fit to be tied. Approximately 20-30 minutes into the set, Cale just walks off stage looking like he was muttering to himself, all pissed off. So the rest of the band follows, and apparently the show is over. House lights come on and the whole bit...
About a half hour after they walked off, Cale and the band came back out. By this time there was maybe 30-40 people left in the theatre. Without saying a word, they started into this jam. And it seemed like they played as loud and distorted as possible. At points the bass player was using a stool to rub and hit his bass strings with... Cale spent the whole time with his back to the audience, facing the amp, playing with the nobs and the feedback. It was one half hour of the most intense jamming you'd ever heard. At the end, the drummers kit was in complete shambles all over the stage, chairs were knocked over... it looked like a hurricane had hit. They all walked off the stage without acknowledging the few people left who were standing in unison giving them a standing ovation.
2. They played exactly 6 songs with reckless abandon (mostly Sabotage material plus Fear), and the sound was not as bad as Cale imagined from the monitors. Sure, there was an echo, and the bottom end had a big ka-thunk kind of feel. Vocals were muddy, but who cared? Not the audience. Cale evidently. He walked off in disgust, and as he did, the look on Deerfrance's face was priceless. A huge sigh, anger, rolling the eyes to heaven, and fatal resignation all in one. Said it all. Cale however didn't just leave. He made a slurred speech of apology, blamed the sound, and said how he simply couldn't continue in all fairness to the audience, the music, etc. etc...
They did come back and they did jam, and the stool was used and it was the most wild and bizarre version of Pablo Picasso I've ever heard. They'd sort of slash about for 3-4 minutes and then yell the "some people try to pick up girls....... " chorus part and then another 3-4 minutes and then yell it again and so it went for about a half hour. When it was over he apologized again and invited everyone left to come to the next night's show at the Edge in Toronto (for a "real show") and they'd get in for free with a Guelph ticket. (Nice promise John. Maybe you should have asked the Edge promoters first!)
