From Fanboy to Family, a Canadian Vagabond's Story
By Shane "Xombieboy" WalkerI suppose I began my journey after finding out that my girlfriend was cheating on me.
Hold on…let me back up a bit…
My first exposure to the band wasn't a song performed by them. It was actually a cover tune by Sepultura (their version of
The Hunt, from their
Chaos AD album), and I had no idea who NMA even was. The first time I would hear a song actually performed by them was in the back of a friend's car, in 1995. He and his girlfriend had recently picked up
The Love of Hopeless Causes, and they were playing it in the car stereo. As soon as
Here Comes the War began, my friend and I were pretty impressed. It would end up being the only song I would hear at that time, because it was a pretty short trip. I had never heard anything like that song (my favourite band at the time was Metallica, and I really didn't listen to anything that wasn't heavy metal), and I remember thinking it was one of the coolest songs I had ever heard (turns out I was right…that is STILL one of my favourite songs of all time, by any band). I asked my friend the name of the band, and he told me. I filed the name away in the back of my mind, and I would actually forget about them for almost a year.
Sometime in 1996, I was dating a girl, and she had a copy of
Thunder and Consolation in her collection. The band's name rung a bell and I remembered that I really dug the one song that I had heard. I asked her if I could borrow it, and she let me take it home, on the condition that I left one of my CDs as collateral, and the usual promises to not use it as a drink coaster or try to microwave it. I left her
Dos Didos Mi Amigos by Pop Will Eat Itself, and I had no idea at the time that I was taking home what would become one of my all time favourite albums.
The album was sitting on my bedroom end table for about a week and a half, untouched. I was pretty busy at work, and I wanted to listen to it when I had time to really give it the proper necessary attention. I still had no idea what it sounded like when I found out that my girlfriend had been laughably disloyal for quite a while (I can't even remember how I found out), and I was one of the last to know. I was too angry to be devastated. I went home, and began packing up every bit of evidence that she had ever been there.
That is, until I got to that CD. I picked it up, and was about to put it in the bag with the rest of her belongings, when I stopped and stared at the album artwork for what seemed like a small eternity. Feeling dejected, broken, betrayed, and pretty much the lowest I could remember feeling at that time, I decided to go ahead and throw the damn thing on, and finally give it a listen.
The first two tracks were undeniably amazing. However, it was the third track that hit me like a speeding bus.
225 was the song that I would end up listening to over and over again, until I knew the words by heart. Every hair on my arms was standing on end, and I was absolutely hooked. When the time came to trade our belongings, she asked if she could get her NMA disc back. I gave her some long spiel about how she would probably like the PWEI album better, and we should just trade, as a show of good faith between two friends. She bought it. To this day, I'm not sorry. At all.
And so began my quest to find whatever I could by New Model Army. I had a quite a bit of luck as time went on, finding used copies of
Vengeance,
No Rest For The Wicked,
Impurity,
The Ghost Of Cain (delightedly tripping over the original version of
The Hunt, and finally getting the correlation for the first time), and
The Love Of Hopeless Causes. However, by the time I had gotten these albums, I had heard that the band was no longer together. I would spend the next five or six years believing that those were the only CDs by them that existed, and while I really dug the music, they weren't nearly as close to my heart as they are now.
That would begin in a nightclub situated in an old movie theatre (which quite a few people believed was haunted, including me...don't even get me started) in the year 2005. The club in question was a place called New City, and it operated between 1997 and 2013. I began working there in 2004, and would remain there until 2009. They were a family-run operation, with no outside investors or promoters. They got their ideas and thoughts about which acts to book from the staff, and they were known for flying in bands for shows that shouldn't have even happened. The number of amazing acts I was essentially paid to see reads like a shopping list. After about a year of working there, I thought it was impossible to impress me with "rock stars" anymore (the glamour had worn off in a hurry). Turns out I was hilariously mistaken.
New Model Army was in the United States for their
Carnival tour. They had a show in Atlanta, followed by New Orleans, then Austin. Hurricane Katrina had other plans. Following the show in Atlanta, the band was without a venue to play in New Orleans. That's all I really know. I have no idea how my boss found out about their situation, or how I ended up looking at a slip of paper at the front desk one afternoon while I was cleaning (one of my many jobs there included janitor), that read:
Brad
Call 1-***-***-****
NMA!!
URGENT!!
[/b]
I remember my reaction quite vividly when I read that note: “There is no freaking way it's who I think it is. NMA stands for something else, and I need to hurry up and mop the dancefloor.” My pal Greg came in (he was one of the DJs and the sound guy for the live shows, and also a huge fan of NMA) and read the note, as well. He said out loud what I was already thinking: "How awesome would that be if it was actually New Model Army?"
About ten minutes later, Brad came in and read the note. Greg and I happened to be standing there when he made the call. The conversation took less than five minutes. He hung up the phone, and said, "We just booked New Model Army."
Then he watched two grown men squeal like little girls, and start jumping up and down.
The day of the show, it was still my job to clean the club from the night before, and get it ready to open for the show that night. I did my work with shaking hands, and I still couldn't believe that Justin freaking Sullivan was going to be there that day!! It was the longest wait ever.
Then they came in through the back door. New Model Army. They were really a band, they were really on tour, and they were really standing right in front of me. And they wound up being the most laid back, professional dudes you could meet. The show was every bit as spectacular as I had imagined. The crowd had an energy I had never felt before. I had been to plenty of shows where the crowd sang along, but this was...different. There was something I had never felt buried inside the familiar ecstasy of seeing your favourite songs played live. It was also the first time I heard
Water, and I remember thinking, "I’m listening to a BRAND NEW NMA SONG!!" To this day, it is one of my favourite New Model Army songs of all time, simply because of how I felt during that opening blast of guitars, and the ensuing emotion that followed it. I screamed, cried, and did some kind of gurgling screechy crap that I'm pretty sure I thought was singing at the time. I heard there was some kind of technical difficulty that night with the keyboards, and they did a set without them. I didn't even notice or care. It was the most cathartic moment of my life.
I will never forget the last song. We were all spent, I was on cloud nine, and we all collectively knew that this was the parting overture. Whatever they played was going to be our last moment to experience this magic that had been hanging in the air since the show began that night. I waited, hands shaking, heart racing, to hear what that last song would be.
It was
225.
When my brain was able to register what it was hearing, and send the appropriate signal to my heart, I thought I was going to explode. It was pure perfection, and it is one of the moments that I will remember for life. I was standing there, singing with tears rolling down my cheeks, when I noticed someone standing directly to my right. I looked over, and one of the band's road crew was standing next to me, with this knowing smile on his face. I didn't know what to say to him, but I could feel every muscle in my face hurting from smiling. He just started singing along with me, and that's how the show ended for me.
I wouldn't find out until later that the guy that was standing next to me, sharing that moment, was Tommy Tee. That was the only interaction I ever really had with him.
Following the show, there was a buzz that you could almost reach out and grab by the handful. People were lined up to meet the band members, and each and every one of them made time for everyone. To this day, New Model Army are some of the classiest guys I have ever had the privilege of meeting. The staff and the band stayed up talking and hanging out for so long, a couple of them got next to no sleep for the show in Austin.
Carnival will always remind me of that night, and the high I was on for the next few days after.
If I was a fan of the band before, I was now a super-fan on the verge of being full-blown obsessed, and I didn't care. From then on, a lot of my friends jokingly began me, "the New Model Army guy." It had been until then the best night of my life, and I figured there was no way that it could get any better than that.
That was until less than a year later, when the guys contacted New City. They were doing a short tour through some of the northern states, and they decided to make a detour to play our club again. I was going to see New Model Army. Again. And I was going to meet the band. Again.
It was winter of 2006 when they returned. This time, there was a slight...hiccup in the plans. By "hiccup," I mean the airline left the band's gear on the tarmac in the previous city. They showed up with no equipment. We asked if they had the merchandise. They said they did. We told them not to worry.
What happened next is one of the coolest things I've ever witnessed.
Everyone at the club started making phone calls. We knew bands. We knew LOTS of bands. With equipment. And lots of them were coming to the show. If I remember correctly, it took less than four hours to get our hands on all the stuff necessary for the show to go on, with guitars and such to spare, stacked up backstage. It was beautiful. Before they began, Justin thanked the audience for bringing the equipment, and the first song they played was
Rumour and Rapture. Again, I was listening to a brand new song for the first time, and once again I was listening to it live. For that reason, R+R is another of my favourite NMA songs of all time, because of the feeling that came with hearing that song for the first time, and the circumstances surrounding it. Incredible.
Once again, after the show the band and the staff hung out and talked, long into the early morning hours (the sun was already up when I left, and they were still going), and I left feeling once again blessed and exhausted. That night was also the first night my sister Dana was working as Security at New City, and she became a fan of the band that night, and she even befriended a few of the band members. She still speaks fondly of that night.
The next time I would see NMA live would be in 2009. They had just released
Today Is a Good Day, and the tour would see them playing in Vancouver at one point. I had to go. I am of the opinion that
TIAGD is hands down the best album they have recorded since
Thunder and Consolation (I haven't heard the new one, as of this writing), and there was no way I was missing that show. This would not be the first time I ever got onto a plane and flew to a different city to see a band, but this one felt like it would be one of the best times of my life.
I remember loving the show, but I also remember the bulk of the crowd just standing around, with almost zero enthusiasm. I hated them for that. Then the band was chased off of the stage after one song for the encore. Lame. To this day, I remember very little about that night, but I remember thinking I didn't want to ever watch another show in Vancouver again. I watched Skinny Puppy in the same venue a month later, so obviously I got over it. Of all the times I've seen NMA though, that show is my least favourite. Pretty sure it always will be.
In 2010, I read some news that pretty much floored me. New Model Army was doing their 30th Anniversary Tour. We all know now what that entailed. I told my sister about it, and we both agreed that we had to go to the closest one possible. That would be in Brooklyn, New York, the only North American date. That is how my sister and I ended up in New York City for the first time ever.
It was at these two shows that I would take my love for this band to a new level. I had been to three NMA shows in my life. They were amazing experiences (Vancouver notwithstanding), and unique from other shows that I had seen. This would be something else entirely. It would be the first time I was exposed to something called
"The Family."When I got to the venue in Brooklyn, I was taken aback by how friendly everyone was. It was clear that many people had come a long way to see the show, and the sense of fellowship was really cool. The show began, and that's when I first saw people make human towers within the mosh pit. It was incredible to me. A bit too scary to try myself, but I was more than happy to help provide support at the base of several structures. The second night was when I met Dez, who would hoist me up onto his shoulders for
Red Earth. After the second show, I asked him if he was on Facebook, he directed me to Gayle, who introduced me to Jack, etc. etc. etc. My night would conclude with Marshall and me teaming up with one of the staff from the venue, and we went off through Brooklyn in the wee hours of Sunday morning, hanging out and finally eating breakfast as the sun came up (this would become a running theme with Marshall and me), before staggering back to my hotel room. All in all, it was two spectacular shows, in a beautiful venue, in an amazing city.
When I got back to Edmonton, I once again figured that that would be pretty much the absolute apex of my experience, and nothing I could do would ever top it. I should have known that I had still barely scratched the surface.
About two weeks after the Brooklyn shows, I got an email from Mark, a dude from Jersey City that I had met at the shows. He and Andrea were heading to London to see the last two shows of the tour, and they wanted to know if I was going. I had never crossed an ocean before. The thought of ever going to England had never once crossed my mind, in my life. Nonetheless, without even thinking about it, I said "Absolutely. See you there." I immediately began saving every bit of money I earned.
I would end up meeting Mark and Andrea at the Forum in London, England. The look on Marshall's face when he saw me that Friday night was priceless. And once again, the shows were spectacular. But then, if you don't believe me, you can just watch the DVDs that were filmed of the shows. If you have seen it, then you know that during their performance of Vagabonds there is a dude in blue plaid pants at the top of a human structure, precariously standing on sweaty shoulders, and bawling his eyes out, while singing at the top of his lungs. That guy is me, and that moment is the reason why Vagabonds is yet another of my favourite songs of all time.
The reason I even have a copy of the London Forum box set is because a year after I saw NMA in London, I decided that when Jack came up with his idea for The Magic Bus in conjunction with NMA's mini tour in October 2011, there was no way I was missing out on that. Especially when I learned that Mark and Andrea were on the bus as well. I bought tickets back to England as soon as I was able to afford it.
In September of 2011, my mother passed away. The timing of it, and the fact that the dates of my trip had already been set, meant that not only was I flying out of Canada the day after my mother's funeral (which I was the speaker for), but I had to lead Edmonton's annual Zombie Walk that previous evening, as well. Needless to say, that was a VERY surreal weekend. I flew back to London for a second time, and met up with Jack, Mark, Andrea, and the rest of the Magic Bus Crew, and saw my favourite band five more times, one of the shows at the base of Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. On the fourth day of that tour, we were in Bridport. We stopped to see Stonehenge on the way, which was incredible for me. That night, Justin mentioned between songs that they wanted to dedicate the next song to all the people enduring personal struggles and such (I don't recall what he said exactly), but he ended it with "...especially Shane." Then they played
Ballad of Bodmin Pill. Again, another NMA song indelibly marked with a memory I will cherish forever. It was then I realized that my favourite band was also five friends who cared about me. I will never forget how calm and truly lucky I felt for the rest of that night. There were even people whom I never had even met before, who walked up to me and told me that not only were they sorry for my loss, but they even joined me in a toast to my mother. Bridport was my favourite stop of that tour.
The last person I ever spoke to about my mother dying was Justin Sullivan, after the last show in Cardiff. That was incredibly cool, and I will never forget how he made time to talk that night. I will also be forever grateful to everyone I met in those five days, who all did their part to help make the pain of that loss so much easier to acknowledge and deal with. It was that tour that helped me realize that I was part of something truly special and unique.
England was pretty cool the second time around, but it wasn't as much fun as it could have been, because I met a girl that I would later ask to marry me. I ended up making plans to leave the country before we met, but it was still a drag having all these experiences, then phoning her back in Canada and try to adequately describe the experience to her. I swore while I was on that trip that I would never get on a plane without her again. That promise was nailed home when I got back to Canada with the 30th Anniversary London Forum box set, and we sat down to watch it. She watched both DVDs, back to back (it was a trip, finding my name in the credits, and myself both in the videos and on the packaging), and when we finished watching the second DVD, she stopped it, looked at me, and said, "I want to do that."
Did I mention I bought her an engagement ring?
And that's that. I waited for the first opportunity to take her to a New Model Army show, and it just happens to once again be on Jack's Magic Bus. We'll be going from Cambridge to London. This will not only be my fiance Andii's first time seeing New Model Army, but it's also her first time in England. If you are going to be at one of those five shows, and you are reading this, come find us! We're the Canadians on The Magic Bus. Ask around if you don't know who we are. Someone will know. Have a drink, say hello, and help me welcome my sweetheart to England. Or just find me in the pit. You'll know what to do.
Peace.
Shane "Xombieboy" Walker
