A Friend Request: Cambridge

An empty night on the itinerary is always tempting.
A night off to tour the sights and have dinner out perhaps, or just a quiet night to take mercy upon these croaky old vocal cords.
But inevitably, a night off for a traveling band is just a money soak, and a very real chance to get on each others’ nerves without that sweet release of stage time.
After London we have a couple of empty nights before we have to be in Blackpool, and the blank spaces on the calendar begin to haunt me as May turns to June, then July..

Then I remember my old pal DS used to do shows in Cambridge, so I take to Facebook messenger and put in a request….

Facebook? What’s that gramps?
I know, I know.
Remember when that goddamn website first came out?
Puzzling in its simplicity, it didn’t allow that goofy personalization of your old Myspace page, where you could decorate your profile with colors and widgets until it looked like the inside of a 13 year old girl’s middle school locker..

No, it was a utilitarian space that simply connected you to friends in no nonsense font, a useful tool that held a breathtaking possibility of connecting the world.
Suddenly, new and old acquaintances connected, regardless of border or timezone.
Recipes shared, family feuds resolved, high school sweethearts found.
Hell, student regimes coordinated their overthrows against totalitarian regimes using Fbook and Twitter, remember that?.

And now?
Has this app fulfilled the promise of a better world? Finally utilized the awesome power of the internet into a new age of understanding?
I’ll get right back to you on that, just as soon as I click on this Teemu offer for a free drone and watch a video of a cat pushing teacups off the counter.

Yeah, it’s pretty grim, logging on these days. Perhaps a few posts from the same twenty friends, the same gig flyers you’ve seen posted for six months.
And then the site dissolves into an ad scroll, targeted specifically to everything your Iphone overheard the day before.

But for a band, it is a necessary evil, for promotion and announcement.
And the friends? They are still out there. You just have to squint past the videos of Turkish ice cream vendors and your asshole Uncle’s daily rants defending the January 6 rioters.

Sure enough, DS comes through, venturing out of his promoter retirement to do us this favor.
The gig comes together in the best possible way, the digital community of bands and locals chiming in with offers of gear and promotion.

An event is created and a blank spot in the calendar filled.
And Social Media, it has fulfilled its promise for once.
Now back to the cat videos.

Our Tour Manager Dave pulls up to the Camden Holiday Inn promptly at 11:30, shocking us with his professional manner as we only know him as a proper nut.
But he takes this role seriously, and soon has us humming up the M11 toward that storied college town.

Dave’s better side

We load into the Portland Arms and hug it up with DS and his wife Georgie.
It is just lovely here, a fine summer evening with people there early to enjoy pizza and drinks on the patio.
I have to remind myself this a punk gig we are at, and not a garden wedding reception.

I sit down with Georgie and it occurs to me half way through our long relaxed chat that we’ve never actually met in person.
Perhaps it is the nature of this new world, our digital pen pals so rarely met, and it is a relief to confirm there is a real person on the other side of the wireless.

The bands on the bill are all tops notch, The Saffs simply killing it with a set of shockingly thoughtful song craft.

And though I eye the cutoff shirts and trucker caps of Roadkill Drive-Thru with a bit of apprehension (could this be cultural appropriation of the goofy rednecks only we get to make fun of??) they turn out to be a solid group of ace musicians who have brought it for the gig.

The Saffs

Roadkill Drive-Thru

We do a relaxed set of songs, throwing in a few extra tracks off Last Time I Drank, as I know DS is a sucker for those big haired anthems.
We even do the rarely played Mary, and he gives me a teary thumbs up.
As final treat, we drag Georgie up on stage with us for a fine rendition of Make Me Feel Cheap, and she shocks us by knowing the damn lyrics better than we do!

It is just one of those nights, smiles all during and after, and our only regret is in saying goodnight.

Even before Dave drives us back to the hotel (another Holiday Inn, naturally), the phone chimes in with notification.
DS posts up, and thanks us again for coming through, though truly, the pleasure was all ours.
A night off has turned into a night to remember, I thank him back and put a thumbs up like next to his comment.

And then, thinking better of it, I swipe my thumb over the screen again, and change Like to Love.