Tesla

Club Denim
Guelph, Ontario
October 25, 2005

I almost didn't go to this show. When Tesla was HUGE I was still mulleting around to Metallica, Soundgarden and Pantera. I did know a couple things about them... One. They had one of the best singers going. Two. They were all great musicians. Three. They kicked some ass in their time. What were they gonna deliver up to us now though? I thought for $30 it would be worth checking out. Considering these guys used to sell out arenas and now they were playing my favorite local venue, small as it may be, I figured I'd get out there and shoot a band that EVERYONE knows, even though they don't know they know them.

So I finished geeking out on the computers at work and grabbed my shit and head over to the venue hoping to catch sound check. Well there's Jeff lounging around outside so I asked if I could shoot the show that night. He's all cool about it and flashes the most smilinest smile I've ever seen since Donny Osmond. I mean this guy has a mega smile on him. If Steven Tyler = Lips, Jeff Keith = Teeth! It even rhymes! I asked him if he'd sign a couple items I had with me... I whipped out a pic of Nikola Tesla that my friend dropped on me and Jeff laughs.. "Right on, I've seen that picture before man!"

Then this other picture I whipped together with a couple photos I found online. He said he'd never seen the one photo before and then he said something that nearly brought a tear to my eye. He said, "hey, let me take these inside and get the rest of the band to sign this stuff for you and I'll send the manager out to talk to you about a photo pass." I heard him actually interrupt sound check to get the rest of the guys to sign these things! Unbelievable. I mean who does that these days? As they finished their sound check, their manager came out and hooked me all up.

Even though I'd already bought a couple tix, he put me on the guest list with a friend and threw me a photo pass. THAT'S customer service my friends. THAT'S the shit I live for!! I came back to the venue for 7:30 and the line up was disappointingly small. I knew this show wasn't going to be a packed house at all. I started thinking, oh oh, this is going to be one of those shows that fizzles and dies because nobody's there and the band will get all pissy about it, etc etc... WRONG. Turns out everyone who came to this show was a HUGE Tesla fan. Everyone went completely nuts when they walked onto the stage. Jeff even commented, "Guelph is small but mighty!"...

Even though 4 out of 5 of the guys spent most of the evening on stools, they seemed to give off enough contagious energy to fill the room and feed back off it. I stood and just watched Troy Luchetta play for a couple tunes straight and he was awesome. Being a bit of a drummer I can usually pick out when a guy fucks up and I didn't notice anything get outta hand there at all. I musta shot 50 pics of him during those 2 tunes and he was just having fun with it the whole time. As soon as he saw me pointing at him a big grin broke out on his face but he quickly got back into the music and let me shoot the serious side too. Not many people get to shoot good photos of the drummer cuz they're always way in the back with hardly any light on them etc etc... Troy was lit up real good and stuck on that stool so I shot him like fish in a barrel...

Way in the background was bassist Brian Wheat rocking back n forth on his stool. Pretty well the whole gig he sat way back there behind Jeff just slowly rocking back n forth to the tunes. Totally into it playing his Hoffner bass without a care in the world. That's the second band in a couple weeks that I've shot with the bass player thumping on a Hoffner. For those who don't know, it's that fiddle looking thing that Paul McCartney used to play with the Beatles. Boy opened for Collective Soul and this young kid came out with one of those. I soon found out where the McCartney bass came into play because Brian did a killer version of "Get Back". Totally impressive. I love the Beatles.

Over on the right we had Frank Hannon and his Jimmy Page impression. I dunno if he does it every night but he dressed like Jimmy, played like Jimmy, posed like Jimmy... hell he even had one of those units on the side of the stage with the antennae that fucks with the frequency of your guitar making it screech n moan in pain like Page had. It was like watching "Song Remains The Same" all over again! Now if it was just anybody who came on stage looking, acting and sounding like that I woulda shit, bust out laughing and threw a beer can or two cuz a guy walking out onstage like that had better talk the fuckin talk too. Well Frank didn't need to say a word cuz his guitar did the talkin for him. That boy can play. On top of playing some killer guitar and treating our ears to some of the best blues based rock we'd heard in a long time, he treated our eyes to the best guitar poses a photographer ever wants to get in front of. I love that shit. I'm from the KISS school of rock so I still wanna SEE a band as well as hear them. Thanks Frank... I needed that!

Over on the left we had Tommy Skeoch with his crumpled cowboy hat and huge mirrored sunglasses just lounging there for the most part with an acoustic and an expressionless face. So cool he shit ice cubes. It wasn't til he got up off his stool and strapped on that Les Paul that we saw what Tommy was all about. What is it about a Les Paul that separates the men from the boys? Those and the Gibson Explorers. I fuckin love those guitars... not just the look but the sound just kicks ya in the nuts and makes ya ask for another. One cool thing they had was these 3 leather couches situated around the perimeter of the stage, one at the left and two at the back. They gave special passes for guys to sit onstage and watch the whole show from the comfort of a nice leather couch right there on stage.

Too cool! So of course, me not being the biggest Tesla fan in the world, I was really in for a learning session that night and I actually did learn something. While I was banging my head to Pantera and all that rip yer face off metal back in the late 80's and early 90's, I really should have broadened my horizons a bit cuz another great band cruised right on by without me paying any attention at all. Well I'm glad I jumped on board the good ship Tesla for a night cuz it was a fine cruise indeed. You might wanna try them out again.

You remember Tesla... the guys who covered "SIGNS"??? The answer is ALWAYS "OOOHHHH YAAAAAAAAAH.... those guys....."