Stef DiFranco and Bad Manners On Tour

The last day of the tour was my favourite, I got to hang with Grace first at Meg's apartment.

I headed from Brooklyn to 86th in Manhattan, Meg has a beautiful apartment right by the Guggenheim.

I dumped my stuff, took a shower and Grace and I headed to the museum, it was just fun to hang out and talk about the past three weeks.

I was so tired, we got coffee and I had two soft boiled eggs, then headed back to the flat. Got all my gear together and rode the train down to 14th street to the Filmore.

The Filmore is a historic venue, you can just feel it when you walk in. I met up there with Ryan and we set up camp in the dressing room. I could sense tonight was going to be great.

Slowly but surely the rest of the band showed up, and we set up for a sound check, we were playing with Big D and the Kids table, they were great, lending us all their gear. Souncheck was great, the sound system in there is excellent, run by a team who know what to do.

Literally after soundcheck they opened the doors and within 30 minutes the evening had begun with Big D. The place was filling up so quickly, it was totally sold out.

Grace was across the road having dinner with friends, I waited impatiently for them to arrive, I paced around as per usual, this is where i ran into an old friend sitting on a box of t-shirts. Heidi Minx, a long time old friend was just sitting there. I had often wondered what had happened to her, and there she was. She just looked at me and then freaked out. We hugged and laughed, and she asked "what the hell I was doing there", "playing" I said. She laughed again. Heidi used to follow the band even to England and take photos.

I headed behind stage just as Grace was getting in the door, along with Brent Bliven, Lynn Hutchinson, Meg Rhodus and Lynn's friend Michelle. Brent is a long time friend from Kansas City, he moved to Boston a few years back. Lynn we met along with her husband Art in Maui two years ago. We kept in touch and last year Grace and I attended their wedding in Boston, and that is how we met Michelle.

The Show flew by, I blinked and it was over, but I will never forget the feeling of walking on and all those great songs

The picture kind of says it all for me, I know from this picture where I was in the set, I am at the ending The Can Can, the final song of the show.

After the show, i headed backstage to dry off, grabbed a beer and headed out the door. There in front of me was Grace, Brent, Meg, Lynn, Michelle and Scott all kissing me and hugging me. It was a very emotional experience, and to have several friends there is something I will never forget.

I have been trying to write this entry for a while, things got crazy and I have not been able to upload and talk about the final day and hours of the tour.

I mentioned we went to New Jersey, we played at The Crazy Donkey, what a place, not really a Bad Manners and English Beat venue, they were not really prepared for us.  Bad Manners has 8 members on stage, three horns, drums, bass, guitar, organ and eight vocals, that’s many mics.  Then you get into the English Beats situation and you run out of room on the desk, so basically we are a sound guy’s nightmare.

We left Brooklyn around 11:00am; it was freezing on Thursday last week.  We were told that the traffic would be terrible, so best to just get there.  We had no heat on the bus and were also joined by Doug’s drunken friends.  One of them, a girl was going to play violin that night with us, she was very nice, not sure of here name.  The drive was only about one hour, so we got there around noon.  We then hung out waiting for the English Beat to turn up and sound check.  We were also told that there would be three bands on in front of us.  This is a pain in the arse as there is not enough room in the dressing rooms for all of us. 

We ordered in Chinese food and I did my usual pacing of the venue, it was 50 Stef steps long and 40 wide, I kept this up for about 1 hour until I was bored and decided to pace somewhere else.

Finally the bar staff arrived and we could get a beer, I got the worst pint of Guinness I have ever had, still it was wet.

Outside was so cold, and they informed us there was a dressing room outside in another RV.  The thought of going onto a different RV was sickening, still we did it, we discovered how the place should really look and that the toilets do actually flush.  It was still freezing in there though and I decided to take my chances inside with the masses.  I staked a claim in the dressing room and stared down anyone who came near it.

Soon it was time for the first band to go on, they were great, noisy Ska-Punk band, full of energy, then the second and third.  While this was going on the dressing room was being frequented by a monster of a man.  He wore a green MA1 any Army green pants.  He was about 6’5” tall and about 275lb.  He just walked in, filled up his pockets with the third bands beer and walked out to the tune of about 6 beers.  We all looked at each other, it was funny everyone’s expression was like, why did you not say something.  We all laughed until he came back 20 minutes later and did the same thing. 

I headed out to the stage right and got my gear in place, we had about 15 minutes until show time.  I saw the club MD and mentioned the mountain in the dressing room.  I did not want the third band to think we were all just drinking their beer.  He then led me over to this bouncer, he was about 5’ 11” and really broad.  He spoke with a thick New York accent and asked me to show him the guy so he could elect him from the venue.  Well, I could not find him, and he proceeded to make fun of the fact that how could a mountain disappear. 

This guys name was Bruno Bruni, turns out he is a New York Cop, he was brilliant, we hung out until I headed for the gig.  We had a great gig, despite only being able to line check everything.  The show was all ages and there were so many kids in there who I chatted with before and after.  After the show I walked off stage and saw my mate Bruno, he then told me he had found the guy and thrown him out.  The situation was made funnier by the fact the guy just went quietly and said sorry.  Bruno and I struck up a friendship, he asked me how he could get a Hooligan shirt, and being as I own them I got him a shirt cap and stickers.

He belongs to The Forsaken Guns MC of New York Motorcycle club and is sending me their shirt.  Also gave me his card and told me “bro, if you ever need me, just call”.  He, Bruno Bruni was just one of the many fantastic people I will never forget on this trip.

To top it all, I was standing there and bumped into several old friends from The Scofflaws, I had not seen them since we toured back min 1991.  We stood there and swapped stories from the past, mostly drunken youth stories.  They are older as am I and there is this wonderful respect between us all, like we went to war together.   It is really hard to say goodbye to old friends, these are some of the people that changed my life.