Back in 2004 I toured with a group called “Embrace the World”. This was a kaleidoscopic group of individuals from around the globe coming together for a short tour to sing about concepts like the oneness of humankind and unity in diversity. There were people from Iran, China, Peru, Colombia, Hungary, Canada, Scotland (nobody understood him) and the US. All of us piled into this tour bus and drove up the pacific coast from California all the way up to British Columbia and back down southeast to New Mexico, ending in Arizona. We performed in theaters a unique and eclectic collection of Chinese-Latin-Persian-Pop songs. I was hired as the guitarist on the tour.
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One of our stops was in Victoria, BC, at the Alix Goolden Performance Hall. I imagine people back then wondered how such a diverse group could come together to sing about unity. What could they possibly have in common? Unity is a very important concept, and it's something we desperately need now, but it's incredibly difficult to put into practice. Everyone had their own ideas about what unity meant, and that was just on a personal level. Musically, it was even more challenging. Try mixing a Chinese Er-Hu with Columbian percussion, a Persian violin, a keyboardist, three main singers, five background singers, a bass and an electric guitar. The noise floor on stage alone was a headache. We managed to get through the tour, but not without some bumps along the way, including our sound engineer quitting. As I said, unity is a great concept, but putting it into practice can be quite challenging.
I’m often labeled as a Flamenco guitarist. But I’m not actually a Flamenco guitar player. I’m a heavy metal guitar player, trained as a classical guitarist, faking it as a Flamenco guitarist. But I do add some Flamenco flair to my guitar playing. Back in the those days, before I discovered the magic of acrylic nails, (yes, I go to a nail salon to get my nails done. Yes, I have a nail technician. She’s very gentle. And yes, getting my nails done is a tax write-off.) I used to use Lee Press On Nails glued to my right hand and then filed to the right shape and length to play guitar. I kept breaking nails because I hit the guitar so hard so this was a good alternative.
This is my nail routine before playing the guitar:
And here’s how my guitar used to look. It’s much worse now.
In the middle of one of our songs it was my turn to play a solo. So, I went straight up to the audience, front and center, and gave them a jaw-dropping performance. Not “jaw-dropping” because I played so well. But because one of my Lee Press On Nails had popped off my finger and soared into the audience mid-solo. It looked like something you’d see in a movie that occurred in slow motion. Everyone’s eyes, including mine, followed that nail straight into the audience as it disappeared between two innocent concert-goers. It actually looked something like a deadened white scab. Gross! That was my cue to gingerly sneak back to the back of the band and pretend nothing happened.
I was pretty embarrassed over the nail fiasco, when, at the end of the show, a petite French woman came up to me and gave me the strongest bear hug I have every received. She went on and on about how much she loved the show while rocking me back and forth and back and forth. I felt the brain in my head getting knocked around with such force. Now, I’m 6 feet tall and this feisty femme was no more than 4’ 9”. But she managed to pull my head down after the head rocking experience and proceed to bite my earlobe. It all happened so quickly. I was stunned! I didn’t know what to do. I stood there in shock when she then said flirtatiously, “You have to be careful with us French. We are very dangerous.” If my eyes could have grown any larger they would have popped out of their sockets.
With a forced smile and a wet lobe I excused myself and hurried back to the bathroom because it felt like she had broken skin. Luckily when I looked in the mirror I saw that everything was fine. All that was hurt was my pride at having felt taken advantage of by a very passionate, middle aged French woman.
To this day, I have no idea why she bit my earlobe. She certainly felt something that day. Was it the unity we sang about? Was it the strange mix of Chinese-Persian-Colombian-Pop music we were playing? I guess I’ll never know. But what’s even more strange to me was that I was just a background performer. I wasn’t even the main attraction. There were certainly more notable lobes to be latched onto than mine.
What I do know is that music can be a strong ambrosia when mixed with the right ingredients. I think we were onto something that day. Even though we were from so many different parts in the world, with seemingly conflicting styles of music. We all had one thing in common - our desire to see the world united. Maybe that’s what she felt.
This post is dedicated to my old friend David Dely who was on the tour and passed away a few years afterwards. He was an incredible musician and friend. And it was an honor to share the stage with him. RIP David.