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

“Hey, guess what,” says Lefebvre, turning to the other musicians, “Bill thinks Mike Bell got another fact wrong — the part about me smoking pot.”

Near Red Deer, the halfway mark to Edmonton, Lefebvre gets vocal about food, about stopping, about stopping sooner rather than later, about hey driver, how about we stop somewhere in “Gasoline Alley” up ahead? The driver gets the hint about who’s paying the freight and recommends a place that’s a right then a right then a left off Red Deer’s Gasoline Alley.

Glenn’s Family Restaurant is a throwback to a more wholesome era. Its exterior is decorated in faux adobe, with a giant teapot painted on one wall. It has two laminated menus, one of which is about eight pages in length and dedicated exclusively to teas. Everybody enjoys the decor, granny-like but cute (or revolting, take your pick) — a macramé-and-doily sort of joint. We blow at least an hour eating breakfast (or brunch), goofing off, taking pictures using Fataar’s Flip video camera, shooting photos with the Hipstamatic app made for iPhone, turning band member shots into thirties sepia-toned vérité portraiture. They look like album cover shots for a Daniel Lanois— or T Bone Burnett — produced roots album. Lefebvre drops a tip that leaves the waitress speechless and befuddled — probably a hundred percent of the bill — and then blames the tour manager: “Barry, you’re the guy holding the ball.”

Around Leduc, Hutch starts in again about the draft inside the van. Now it’s a full-bore whine. The van’s windows are fully iced. You could take a new credit card to the windows and have trouble scraping off the layers. “I’ve got frostbite!”

Bookin says, “Hey, Hutch, it’s okay, I’m not cold.” He talks Hutch down and switches places with him. Problem solved. In any traveling entourage, Hutch is the Official Squeaky Wheel, the one who speaks for all. Hutch lives in Hawaii when he and Fataar aren’t on the road with Bonnie Raitt playing casinos and other lucrative venues. Nice life.

Hutch raises his voice when making a point to neutralize other voices and shout down opposition. Lefebvre can play that game too, especially when espousing his political views. He says Hutch takes up a lot of the air in a room and doesn’t leave much for anyone else; it takes one to know one. I wonder what a raised-voice contest between Hutch and Lefebvre might sound like. Could be high entertainment, but ultimately Hutch defers to the boss. The group is remarkably sanguine and good-natured about Hutch’s yapping. They’re both in awe of and alarmed that Hutch can recite every last gig he has ever played, and what he ate before and after the show.

Bookin mentions to Lefebvre that he might have to have a conversation with Don Felder about the length of the opening act’s set last night. The twelve tunes took almost an hour to execute, not forty minutes. Most headliners would spit blood at this intrusion into their sacred space. Not that Lefebvre cares, it would seem. It looks like he’s going to do what he’s going to do. As for good old Donny Felder, who from all reports seems to be a well-adjusted and likeable man, well, we’ll see.

Backstage in the John Lefebvre Band HQ at Enmax Hall, keyboardist Patrick Warren gives me a synopsis of his successful career as a musician for hire. He used to run his own business as a medical tech, driving around L.A. recording people’s brain waves. Then he decided to try for his first love, making a living as a musician, so he relegated his business to his fallback position.

Warren found himself playing on Michael Penn’s first CD, March , released in 1989. The album was a bit of a sleeper hit. Producers took notice and looked to emulate the sound of that first Penn album because it was hot. Warren soon became a studio commodity and worked on hit records by Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, and Macy Gray in the nineties. He made his name with Penn, and that was it, he’s been working ever since. No more brain waves.

After dinner it’s time for me to head up to Enmax Hall at 7:20 and sit beside the soundboard again. The main floor is packed by curtain time, much fuller than in Cowtown the night before (even with the opening act papering the place with friends and relatives). It appears Lefebvre will have a full audience’s rapt attention tonight. The band had a meeting beforehand, and they seem positive and ready to kick it up a notch. Now that they’ve been through the set once live, they know what to look out for. Warren, for instance, rolls his eyes about some of his presets. He says he hasn’t figured out why, but sometimes they trigger themselves in the wrong spots.

Lefebvre looks more confident tonight. Maybe not fully relaxed — to maintain a certain level of stress can be energizing — but obviously more in command the second time around. He doesn’t feel the need to stop and introduce every single song. They decided to keep “Wakes and Dreams” but to flip a song or two around in the order. Introducing “Juice” tonight, Lefebvre has a better anecdote: “The doc checked me out and said I ought to cut down. One glass of red a day might be all right, he said. So my assistant Marian buys me a glass for the occasion. Turns out three bottles of wine fit into the glass.”

The set flies by a lot faster, or seems to. Everybody looks tuned in to the details of presenting the songs. The audience is surprisingly appreciative — maybe more so than in Lefebvre’s hometown. Lefebvre has a few anti-oil songs, and he makes damn sure the town not so far from Leduc, the birthplace of the Alberta oil boom, knows which side of the debate he’s on.

We stay overnight at the Sutton Hotel in downtown Edmonton. Bookin and Lefebvre get up early and head out into the minus-four cold. They’re off to CBC to do an interview at Q , the daily morning arts and (some) politics show, with Terry O’Reilly. The guest host has his list of questions, and he’s damned if he won’t get through it. Not much for follow-up queries, this guy. Still, it’s national exposure for the fifty-nine-year-old aspiring rock star.

At Edmonton International, Lefebvre bumps into Mike Harcourt. The former British Columbia premier, 1991–96, is off to Halifax. He’s now an itinerant sustainable development preacher, and Halifax is part of his circuit. “We’re within thirty-six months of eradicating homelessness on the lower east side,” he brags to Lefebvre, looking for a gold star of approval. Harcourt has been working in the sustainability business since leaving politics. He fell off his balcony into the ocean a few years back. Good thing his wife was there to fish him out and get him to a hospital. It took about a year to recover. Harcourt meets Payne, Leisz, and Bookin. They listen to Harcourt do his sustainability rap for a bit.

“Sustainability,” Payne interrupts, finally. “I guess that means you’re in the Viagra business?”

On the flight to Van, I sit beside drummer Ricky Fataar. One of his big moments was working with the Beach Boys on their album Holland in the early seventies, but he’s been a musician since he was twelve years old. He found out there’s a website dedicated to his first band, the Flames, in South Africa. All his most embarrassing moments, frozen in time online for all to see. He tells me about “Mr. Moto,” the group’s Ventures-like instrumental single from 1964, now forty-seven years ago. The Trailer Park Boys, unbeknownst to Ricky, were huge fans of the Flames. They asked him and his brother to contribute to their movie soundtrack.

We touch down at Vancouver International around noon on Wednesday. Everyone has a free day, although Lefebvre has reserved a long table for us at Gotham, a high-end steakhouse a few blocks from the hotel, for tonight at seven.