Day 2&3 – Panorama to Kananaskis
Another ski resort feeling the effects of a dry winter. Not a lot of people staying here, but they hadn’t had a band in for about 4 months, so the entire work-force from the stores and hotels surrounding the ski hill showed up at Woodies to see JR play 2 nights. Fancy hotel and friendly people. Rider transgression attempt number 2. A group of 40 British kids were staying here for some sort of ski training. About 10 of them showed up for the first night, stayed too late, drank too much, slept in and although promising to bring out the whole crew the next night ended up getting banned by their coaches from attending because they had been so useless that day. This was a big shame because they seemed really nice, enjoyed the band a lot and would have filled the bar up with drunk people, which always adds flavour. In the end, the bar made off with 6 of our dollars. This was negotiated with the manager who really did resemble Fat Bastard of Austin Powers’ fame (as told by an unnamed staff source before we met her). This made for a difficult conversation where Al was very friendly and polite and tried very hard not to laugh… or go off in his Scottish burr and roll around in his sumo outfit…
After the first of the 2 shows, Stephen, Al and I ended up at a party at the employees’ residence with sound guy Norm and the rest of the cast from Jay and Silent Bob. Stephen takes my picture wearing a ridiculous outfit next to some drying pot in the window (because I’m such a pothead!!). We later discover the pot is fake. Like curtains. Weird… People were rolling joints made from pages of the bible. We (of course!!) abstained. It sure seemed smoky…