The Bogle Blurb
By Eric Bogle
10 December 2001, South Australia
Hello folks -I'm finally back home after 3 months or so on the road in Canada and U.S.A., and am I tired, frazzled, worn-out, jet-lagged etc.??? Well, yes, but recovering swiftly, thanks to my amazing physical condition (and it is amazing!) plus the odd wee Scotch or two.
Where to start? I dunno, maybe the beginning would be a good place........
My wife Carmel and I flew out of Adelaide on the 25th August, bound for Toronto. Thanks to the infinite efficiency and helpfulness of Quantas Airlines, we could not be seated together, so we had separate seating all the way to Toronto. I suppose we should be grateful they put us both on the same plane at least. Not a good start. 30 hours later, somewhat tired and with a dreadful hangover (Me, not Carmel!) we finally arrived in Toronto, and spent the next two days in the Park Hyatt Hotel sleeping and trying to remember our names, and why we had come to Canada in the first place. God, how I hate flying.....
After a couple of days things got a bit better. We hired a car and left Toronto, heading for points East, and North East as well. First stop Ottawa, only spent about 4 hours there, there's something about a City whose main industry is Politics that is distinctly unsettling. Next stop Quebec, a much better proposition altogether. Nice hotel right in the middle of the old quarter, great food, and I had a lot of fun torturing the locals with my hideous schoolboy French. It certainly is a beautiful city, and we hope one day to return.
On to the Gaspe Peninsula, just to get a bit more flavour of French Canada, then Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton and Nova Scotia. The Eastern seaboard of Canada is probably one of the most beautiful coastlines I have ever seen, and the weather was perfect as well. Carmel gorged herself on lobster and salmon, while, gastronome that I am, I stuck mostly to hamburgers and french fries. We unfortunately did not get to Newfoundland as we had originally planned, as we were fast running out of time (and money!). But it was a magic trip, we both reckoned we could live there quite happily, except that the winter is about 7 months long, or so the locals told us. I reckon they were just trying to keep the place for themselves, and who can blame them.
On 10th September we sailed from Yarmouth to Bar Harbor in Maine, a beautiful little town. We arrived late, and went to bed, and woke up on September 11th to a vastly changed world. Enough has been said and written about the horrific events of that day, and my insignificant pen cannot add anything particularly new or insightful, so I do not intend to say much more about it. Like the rest of the world, Carmel & I spent the day watching the events unfold on television with a dazed stupefaction and an increasing despair and anger. The serenity and beauty of our immediate surroundings seemed somehow to increase the obscenity of what was happening in front of our eyes. It was a day never to forget, and one that would cast a shadow over many of the days that followed.
But plans had been made and had to be followed, schedules had to be kept, work still had to be performed, and lives still had to be lived. In short, life goes on, no matter how hollow it all seems at first. Our lives stood still for a day, then we got on with it, that's how it was for most of us I guess, although for far too many innocent souls it all stopped for them on September 11th.
We made our way back to Canada via Vermont, the first tinge of Autumn was colouring the trees, and it was very beautiful. It seemed that we were somehow more aware than normal of the physical beauty of the countryside we were travelling through. A reaction due, no doubt in part to the horrendous images that were still very much in our mind's eye. We arrived back in Toronto on September 15th. And I flew to Victoria on Vancouver Island on 16th September to start the tour with Mr. John McDermott, bon vivant, malt whisky imbiber, world's worst video game player, and general all-round good egg.
In an effort to console herself from parting for a while from her favourite wee Scottish songwriter, Carmel travelled on for a month or so more, making stops in Edinburgh, London, Paris, Rome, Sorrento and Pompeii on her way back to Australia. She was, by her own admission, comforted by her travels.....
And so to the tour, made mostly on a big green bus, a genuine tour bus with T.V.s, videos, bunks, fridge, microwave, loo, the whole box and dice. To me it was the highlight of the whole tour, travelling in that bus, galdarn it, I felt just like a real musician! So from 16th September to 18th November, I impersonated a touring musician and mostly got away with it. It was a lot of fun, a lot of hard travelling too, but that's part of the game. And when it got down to the sharp end of it, i.e., the music, it was always fun. I sang a couple of songs in the first half of the concert, and a couple of songs in the second half, and joined John for a couple of songs at the end of the show. The combination seemed to work, certainly the audience reaction was as much as we could wish for. John was incredibly generous with his time as far as I was concerned. There was absolutely no need for him to share the stage with anyone, let alone me. But he did it because, as he said, it was his wish and pleasure to do so. It was certainly my pleasure. I didn't have to work too hard, I got paid pretty well, and it's spoiled me for tours of my own in the future, but I forgive him.
One of the most enjoyable parts of the tour was playing my songs with John's band and a pretty hot bunch of musicians they were. I got on particularly well with the guitarist Bill Bridges, but that was mainly because he was the only one on the tour who was older than me, so I was pretty nice to him. But they were all good guys. Vernon Dorge, the sax player and flautist played for many years with Blood, Sweat and Tears. Ray Legere, the fiddler, is a bluegrass legend. Brigham Phillips, the pianist and John's musical arranger is a superb musician. I'd like to play with them again, but I don't think I can afford them.
The highlights of the tour? Too many to list individually, and that is no lie. But the concert that stands out in the memory for me was the very last one on November 18th. We played a Sunday afternoon concert at a church in Brooklyn, N.Y. It was a sort of memorial/tribute concert. Five members of the congregation at the church had been firemen who died on September 11th. There was a woman there who had lost her husband, a N.Y. Policeman, when Tower 1 collapsed, and lost her son, who was a fireman, when Tower 2 collapsed. There was another woman who was holding her new-born baby, who had been born the day after her father, a fireman, died in Tower 2. A very emotional and moving experience. And uplifting as well, the courage and pride of the people I met that afternoon helped reconnect some of the threads that still bind me to the human race, and which had been broken by the events of September 11th. There's never a negative without some sort of positive is there?
On November 20th, I flew back to the Land of Oz. Quantas managed to seat me beside myself, so no problem there. I arrived in Adelaide at 12:30 pm on November 22nd (we lose a day going back) tired and with a massive hangover (does this sound familiar?). I breezed through the Customs and Immigration for once, one look at my face probably warned them that I was in no mood to be trifled with, or even sundaed with........
I arrived back to a house full of tradesmen all sawing, hammering and drilling away, so I've not had much peace and quiet or time to relax since I got back. It's all supposed to be finished before Christmas, or so the builder assures me, and I assume he meant this Christmas. But when it's all finished we'll have a brand new carport and bathroom, and THAT'S THE LAST BLOODY RENOVATIONS I'LL DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!!! - you heard it here first...
And so to next year. I've already lined up a fairly full calendar of gigs in Australia for the first 6 months of the year, with more coming in fairly regularly. Just goes to show you can fool most of the people most of the time. I plan to record a new CD probably around May. I've got 8 songs ready to roll now, and should hopefully have a few more by May. I road tested some of the new songs at a couple of gigs in Canada, and they seemed to go down pretty well, so I'm hopeful the CD will turn out OK. I've already got a working title "Another Bloody Waste of Time and Money" - catchy eh? I plan to return to North America next Fall, in fact my agent has already started booking the gigs, hopefully a full and profitable tour can be arranged. Mind you, if I was in this business for the money I would have returned to accountancy a long time back.
That's about it folks, I've rabbited on even more than normal this time. Thanks to my fans who came to see me during recent North American tour, your support helped a lot, believe me. And thanks also to those people who sent me birthday cards, gifts, and even flowers on my birthday. You know who you are, and to get them during a tour when I was a long way from home and family gave me quite a lift I can tell you.
All that remains is for me to wish you all the best for the Festive season, and to express the wish that 2002 brings some measure of peace and justice to ALL the peoples of this fragile earth.
Regards Eric
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