Bill Reynolds - Life Real Loud - John Lefebvre, Neteller and the Revolution in Online Gambling

Lefebvre’s old buddy Danny Patton is with us — he’s Lefebvre’s confidant and employer’s ears in dealing with the soundmen. I groan to Patton about my recent sciatic nerve woes, only to find out he’s been afflicted with diverticulitis. While I blather on, Patton quietly pops fish oil pills and aloe vera pills. He does not complain about what ails him. His meter is set on positive. He always has a wisecrack and rarely lets things get him down. In the late seventies, he was a punk rocker in a Calgary band called the Unusuals. Unlike many, he could actually play his instrument before he and the two other guys formed the band. Patton has no illusions about making music. Music is music. Sometimes people like it, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people go crazy for it, as with the Eagles and the Sex Pistols, and sometimes they don’t (as with millions of acts). Who is he, who are you, who am I to judge? My post-career music critic mien likes this attitude … now.

“Hi, I’m John.” Lefebvre extends a hand to soundman Brad. “My whole future depends on you — but hey, no pressure.”

The soundman looks up at Lefebvre then looks back to the board. Truth is, he’s not quite sure what he’s doing — not because he’s incompetent but because this new “Xbox” setup, as he calls it, the one he’s been asked to use at EPCOR, is foreign to him. Lefebvre has hired a filmmaker to shoot the Calgary set. This seems like a narcissistic move, but maybe it’s to learn from mistakes in stage presentation. There are going to be mistakes. The band knows it. Everybody knows it. Lefebvre has never presented his music in such a plush, formal environment. Casual bars, sure, where sloppy is best, but here goofing off between songs won’t cut it.

Barry Bookin, Lefebvre’s tour manager, is looking at the camera guy’s setup. He worries about the tripod getting in the way of paying fans. He checks to see whether or not those two particular seats have been sold.

“Hey Barry,” I wonder, “the show, is it sold out?”

“I don’t know.”

Okay, maybe he’s lying. You’d think a manager would have a handle on this kind of detail. Bookin, it turns out, contributed background vocals to a few Johnny Rivers songs back in the seventies. He says the highlight of his career was singing on the television show The Midnight Special . That’s sort of big-time, or was back then.

There are so many guys milling about, trying to make this gig happen. Inside the guts of a concert operation, a number of occupations and livelihoods are at stake. There are guys who work for the center. There are guys who book the tour into the center and every other venue on the route. There are guys who take care of the stage. There are guys who take care of the lighting. There are guys who take care of the sound. The parade of support for two acts to be on stage at the correct time and look and sound good seems endless. All everyone needs for success is bums in seats.

Over at stage left, it’s sound check time for Don Felder and his band. They’re doing some slow-bluesy, duh-duh, duh-duh, bass-line-driven, cock-rock thing, with this long-blond-haired wisp of a siren belting out her need to be whatever’ed. That would be Felder’s daughter Leah, a real Malibu Barbie. This schlock will work because we’re tripping back to the seventies for what Felder calls “A Night at the Hotel California.” Calgary, the place where all those Stevie Ray Vaughan and Boston and Van Halen and Supertramp albums flew off the racks, likes to time travel. Or maybe it never left.

Sound checks are both necessary and tedious to musicians — but not necessarily for the leader in this case, because this is all new to Lefebvre. Thump-a, thump-a, thump-a goes Ricky Fataar’s kick drum. “Okay! Snare!” Fataar snaps the snare skin robotically. Meanwhile, bassist James “Hutch” Hutchinson gives his best Roger Daltrey in testing the main mic, aping the scream from “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Y-e-e-e-a-a-a-h-h-h-h-h!!!” Yes indeed, meet the new boss, same as the old boss, the goddamn fucking Eagles.

Then guitarist Greg Leisz lets fly a Roger McGuinn — style cascade of notes. The guy is nothing but pure pleasure to listen to and makes me forget how bloodless this procedure is.

Since it’s the first show, the band wants to rehearse as many full tunes as possible before hitting feeding hour, so they give four from the set list a go. Everyone is fighting for a limited frequency band in the middle, the soundman says, shrugging. Think positive — could be everyone’s hammering away just to grab some levels now, and subtlety and restraint might rule tonight.

Back in the dressing room, Lefebvre’s publicist, Sharon Szmolyan, brags about the number of hits in L.A. Mike Bell’s Calgary Herald Lefebvre profile is getting. I guess she’s on the gravy train, too, collecting simoleons.

“When are we going to see you in L.A., John?” Szmolyan’s job is to get Lefebvre ink in Canada. For the U.S., he enlisted Shore Fire, an expensive, big-time publicity machine. It represents Bruce Springsteen, to name one superstar. The Canadian and American entities may or may not talk to one another.

Around 7:15 p.m. I sit down in one of the movable chairs that have been placed beside the soundboard at the back of the auditorium. People file in. There are an awful lot of people here for the opening act. Lefebvre has invited friends and family, sure. “I can’t believe it,” someone says, “he actually filled the place up.” It’s true. Not every one of the 1,800 seats, but Lefebvre has a good crowd on hand for his first show. The band walks on. Applause. Lefebvre walks on. More applause.

“Hi, Mom … you here? I’ve got a song for you later.”

Silence.

“Any of you ever done this before?”

Silence.

No, and neither has Lefebvre. He flubs the first line of “Painted Pony.” There is no instrumental introduction to the song, so his vocal is supposed to come in at once. He misses the post and catches the second line. It’s embarrassing, but no big deal. It won’t be perfect.

Lefebvre introduces each song, which starts to disrupt the rhythm of the show. For instance, he introduces the song he calls “Theme” as, “My friend Danny told me this joke. There’s a typo in that title. It’s actually ‘The Me.’” It might have been funnier when Danny said it.

Lefebvre’s band is lively and tight — not tight to its standards, but not bad for a first night. The leader has chosen mostly rock-oriented material — country rock, country swing, fifties jive-rock — to showcase his songwriting. When you have only forty minutes, hit them between the eyes seems to be the rationale. Just two ballads in his twelve-tune set — nothing like the ratio on his albums.

He introduces “Juice,” one of his booze songs: “You guys heard of Hank Snow? ‘I’ve Been Everywhere’? This is my tribute: ‘I Quit Everywhere.’ It’s a sixty-year-old’s rebel yell.” Lefebvre confesses he can’t stop drinking expensive wine. He’ll give up every other kind of booze, gladly, but don’t even try to stop him from ordering a several-hundred-dollar bottle of wine or two in a restaurant.

“Wakes and Dreams,” Lefebvre’s Procol Harum — influenced tune, sounds forced. No one in the band can get a purchase on the herks and jerks. It’s too fast to be an effective evocation of Procol, but the audience stays with Lefebvre. He’s getting through the set and the band is right there for him. And then there’s the strangest interlude. About two-thirds of the way through, Lefebvre leaves the stage. The band wonders what’s up. Is he coming back? Hey, we’re hanging out to dry here, Johnny. Don’t do this to us! After a lull, which is probably only a minute but seems interminable in concert time, Lefebvre bursts back on stage wearing a new jacket. Maybe it’s his James Brown moment, leaving the stage only to claw his way back. Can’t keep a greedy man down and all that. But Brown and Bobby Byrd had that routine worked out down to the last detail. Here we have either a wardrobe malfunction or a pee break.