Sept 9 - 11:00 a.m. - Woobine Racetrack (45 minutes outside Toronto). I've driven up with Jerome Godboo and just as we settle in, we see Terry Wilkins come over the horizon lugging his big bull bass. He was looking very sharp and that's good because it was a condition of our contract "Suits and ties - Blues Brothers look" it said, finishing with "Look Sharp" The other band playing (at the other entrance) looked *really* sharp. Black suits and black shirts - it was Sandy Maintyre on fiddle with guitar and hand drum accompanyment.
So we played some instrumental blues for the folks - Jerome jumped in with a vocal on a few songs (and did a lot of jumping, generally - you can't hold Jerome down. He even had some fancy footwork for the gamblers. There's no PA but I told Terry it would be fine because although hundreds of people walk by you, they don't make a sound. When they get to the racetrack, their intent on only one thing ands they don't make small talk with their friends and neighbours.
In the slot machine area (a giant fantasyland arcade) it was quite different. There was a caucophony of sound emanting from thousands of slot machines making spinning (and occasional) wilnning noises. It sounds like sopmething Phillip Glass would create.
After the gig, I went (almost) straight to my sound engineer's house to put together a quickie demo to take on my trip to Bulgaria and Beyond. I've just been listening to the racks and now I'm going to sleep on it.