Endangered Ape played Sudbury, Ontario on May 15th, 2009 to a welcoming audience, but chilly venue manager looking to squeeze a bit more out of us for his own ends. The event culminated with the 3 a.m. departure from the Sudbury venue and from the city itself. No one had slept since the following morning and we had the dark, unforgiving roads of northern Ontario to deal with. I had been worrying over the course of the trip of the slim chance of an accident with our van. The chance was of course, just as good as the car next to us that we would be involved in some sort of mishap. Road conditions, driver blunder and even a drunk driver could lead to a disaster on the road. The thought of the majority of our equipment and instruments packed in the back cascading over us in a violent impact created shivers down my spine every time I dosed off in the course of a long haul. If the force of the initial crash traveling at high speeds on the highway didn’t kill us, the inertial crash of the gear in the back certainly would crush us like bugs in our own vehicle. It wasn’t that I had no faith in anyone driving; it was the thought of a simple, random impact, like hitting another car or a tree, made me uneasy.

It was with this gruesome thought that I slipped into unconsciousness for the early morning. When I awoke, we were in a blizzard, why anxiety heightened. Given Murphy’s Law, this was the prime time for an accident. We were only a few days from home, in the middle of nowhere, with no way to call for aid in the event of an accident. Miraculously, we made the trip to Thunder Bay unscathed, but with an unfortunate casualty none the less; a bird hit the windshield, getting caught in the wipers and causing quite a stir with our driver.

We returned to The Apollo, the bar and musician compound that let us play and spend the night in the first stage of our tour. On our previous arrival in the city, we were greeted with a home cooked meal and a night of friendly conversation with the owner of The Apollo. Tonight, we were to play at the Black Pirate’s Pub, an antagonistic rival in the Thunder Bay music scene. Apparently Thunder Bay was too small a market to have two live music bars in the city, so a seemingly unending battle to attract crowds and business existed between the two. Endangered Ape had unwittingly found itself in the middle of a turf-war on the north shores of Lake Superior. It was a simple mistake through the process of booking shows months in advanced from Lethbridge that we had found ourselves booked in at two competing venues in one town. It actually is not an uncommon occurrence. In Calgary alone, we had played at the Palomino, Broken City, and The Ship and Anchor, just to name a few. What I was upset about was the level of hospitality we were given as an outside band by the proprietors of The Apollo. They definitely went above and beyond in feeding us, letting us sleep in the hostel above the venue for free and being genuinely kind to us all. Playing for their competitors, especially in an economic environment seemed classless. In a system where cooperation and group networking was essential, it felt like we were putting that initial solidarity at stake for future help in the area and beyond. Thankfully, the owners’ of The Apollo were understanding of the situation. What a classy bunch of people there.

The social misunderstanding didn’t really apply that night when all was said and done. We played to about 6 people, none of which were extremely interested in any of the bands playing that night. We ended up playing our set at Black Pirates Pub, then immediately hauled our gear down the street to the Apollo to set up for another set. Afterwards, while the night was winding down, we had a very topical discussion at the bar regarding bands meeting an untimely end from car accidents. It would seem that my chronic worry of van accidents was not trivial as accidents on the road have spelt doom for many a touring group. Ignoring some of the bigger names in music history that have died in accidents on the road (i.e. Marc Bolan, B. Doon, Cliff Burton), stories of touring bands from all corners of North America pop up in magazine articles and internet news sites. A passing search of the topic can be found in a matter of seconds. Examples come from all corners of the continent. At the time of this writing, you can search the internet and find recent stories of bands involved in serious accident:

Six-Piece Pop group from Chicago

Mall Rock band in wreck from September

Christian Rock band involved in a less than graceful collision

Even school marching bands are not safe from random accidents!

The list goes on, but from a short search, a number of bands can easily be found that experienced some sort of touring tragedy.

Between all of us, we could name off a few dozen bands that had been in serious accidents. I was acquaintances with a few musicians that were involved in a fatal van accident while on tour in Alabama. If anyone was around the Edmonton punk/hardcore scene in 2002, they would have heard about the fatal crash that killed two members of the band, Compromise. Personally, that is the closest I’ve been to an accident on tour, and that’s probably as close as I’d want to keep that experience.

Sobered with the night’s topic and reflecting on the reckless departure from Sudbury the past night, we decided to cut the trip back home in half to keep us roadworthy and safe. It was probably a good idea. I didn’t want anyone talking about us in some empty bar years from now talking about how senseless and utterly stupid our deaths would have been. So, in a rather un-climatic fashion, the last show of our cross Canada tour had ended with us alone in a quiet, empty bar in Thunder Bay, thinking about home and what we had been through together on the long, and sometimes unforgiving road.

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