Good Friday makes me nostalgic. I spent three Easters in a row with The Headstones and my friends in Canada.
I remember being in Buffalo on Easter Sunday making breakfast in a Homewood Suite while my sister and her boyfriend (now husband) went to pick up Trent and Sara. I turned up the Jimi Hendrix and went about fixing a spread: biscuits and gravy, omelets, potatoes, fresh tomato slices, and mangoes. Oh, and we had plenty of beer, too (hey! It was brunch – like, 2pm).
I have the surreal image in my head of Trent Carr sitting at the table reading the newspaper while I slice veggies for omelets.
Weird.
Another time (I believe it was an Easter weekend), we drove to Acton from Toronto to see the guys play. I was up in the balcony, right on the rail – perfect view. That was the show where someone threw a beer at Hugh and it shorted out the microphone. He grabbed Trent’s and finished out the song.
A Bullet-In-Board friend of ours (toasterdementros) was on the front row of the pit and started beating the crap out of the beer-thrower … which of course resulted in the two of them being thrown out. Toaster got thrown out of every single show, though (he was an angry drunk). This time, Hugh left the stage to let the band jam (as he often did), returning with Toaster in tow.
Hell, yeah!
We stayed at a friend of Sara’s that night (along with a shitload of people). They had a giant party with lots of booze, *ahem* herbs, and cheesecake:
Damn good cheesecake (one of the party attendees was a professional baker and had brought two of the biggest, prettiest cheesecakes I had ever seen).
One of my most pleasant memories is dragging myself up those stairs the next morning and into the sun-flooded kitchen. I poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter sipping one of God’s greatest creations. My sister, her boyfriend, and Trent came in from the backyard and joined me. We stood around, leaning on the counters, chatting … eating cheesecake right from the whole (no slices, no plates) with a fork. At one point Trent eyes my sister and me and says, “This is cool. Your accents make me feel like I’m hanging out with my family.” (He was born in Lexington, KY and has family there).
It was such a nice, laid-back morning.
And of course, my last Headstones show was on Easter Eve at The Corral in Grande Prairie, Alberta. But first: Billy’s Outlaw Inn in Slave Lake:
Think the Cowboy Bar in the Blues Brothers, minus the chicken wire.
My friends and I had gone to their “big” show (The Iwannalayya Luau at the Edmonton Convention Center – thousands of people) and to the after party. Steve (Trent’s brother) said he would put us on the guest list for Billy’s and had us write down our names (he wasn’t exactly capable at the time if you get me). Maggie wrote our names on a little slip of paper (I think it was a receipt) and a little smiley face. When we got to Billy’s, the note was in the cash box. LOL! He hadn’t even put us on a “proper” list, just gave the cashier the smiley face note. I love it!
When we went inside, the opening band was on and the singer was playing a trombone. This was a punk band, dressed like cowboys, and he was playing a trombone … badly.
Anyway, we drank too much that night to follow the tour bus (the band left that evening, although Trent did come have a few drinks with us first), so we stayed in the only hotel in town. It was a tiny little motel and other than that, a gas station, and Billy’s there wasn’t a whole lot to the town. We walked to the gas station and bought ice cream sundaes and burritos on the way back to the hotel.
It was a very good Friday.
The show in Grande Prairie deserves it’s own telling, but it will have to wait until something brings it back up. 
