Chapter 48: Humble and Kind

The John Labatt Center, London, Ontario
7:41pm, Friday, January 4, 1980

After seeing that Lynette was set at her keyboards and that the three of us on the main stage had our guitars set, Eda laughed from her drum throne, “C’mon, c’mon ... we’ve got a show to get to. Oh, by the way, C’mon, C’mon just happens to be the name of this next song.”

I immediately started in with the opening easy guitar riff and Eda soon added her drum sound to the first song with all of us naked on stage. The four Bandettes then harmonized a string of twelve, “C’mons“ before I sang, “Everybody, everyone, c’mon, c’mon ... c’mon, c’mon.”

I then swung my ‘Cuda Fender around to my back as the Bandettes’ were going to be the main musicians on this song. Without my guitar, I knew I was on full display to ‘everybody, everywhere’, so I just lifted my arms up to sing:

On that last line in the first verse, I couldn’t myself and pointed down at my naked crotch with both of my index fingers, and then pointed to my three naked girlfriends and the St. Mike’s beauties at the front of the crowd. I loved how the Charlton twins, Tawni and Toni raised their hands in the air and gave me a ‘come and get it’ motion with their fingers.

The crowd’s noise died down as we played this future Def Leppard song. However, when I moved behind Brick near the end of the second verse and covered her glittery, large boobs with my huge hands, they roared at that unexpected event. It finally made sense to the crowd as I sang, “I bet the seven wonders ain’t got nothin’ on you!” with my hands jiggling her ‘delightful double-Ds’.

As Bandettes brought C’mon, C’mon towards its finish, I spun my guitar back around to the front of my body to add an aggressive ten-second riff to complement E’s and Lisa’s powerful conclusion to our song.

While I swapped out my ‘Cuda Fender for my double-necked Felder guitar, Lisa asked the crowd, “Don’t you just hate rumors ... especially ones started by the Premier of Ontario?” Our baseball cap wearing beauty then added, “Well, I’m here to dispel the one of those about a possible oldies’ song. See, me and Mike share a birthday with a semi-famous singer. Matter of fact, Mike’s turning seventeen and I’m turning fifteen this coming Tuesday. So ... in honor of our birthday buddy, we’d like to do something called... Don’t Be Cruel.”

Sammy, Lynette and Eda harmonized an, “Uh-Uh-Uh-Ah!” as Lisa announced our next song title. E immediately started the easy bass drum, snare and high-hat rhythms to get our cover song going. Lisa and I couldn’t help chuckling when Lynette unexpectedly added, “In case you didn’t know who that semi-famous singer is, these bums’ birthday buddy is non-other than the King ... Elvis Aaron Presley.”

Eda skillfully continue with another eight measures of her simple drumming as Lisa wasn’t ready to sing at the obvious entry point due to Cano’s ad-libbed statement. Taking a quick, settling breath, Lisa then sang in her sweet soprano voice:

Lisa added a simple bass line to E’s drumming as she sang, ‘But don’t be cruel.’ Only after our busty bassist sang the final line in the first verse did Sammy, Lynette and I add our softened instruments to our rendition of this Elvis classic. Sammy enjoyed playing lead guitar on this bluesy song as I strummed a rhythm on the upper twelve-string neck of my guitar. A little later in this song, the two of us enjoyed doing a short thirty-second dueling guitar solo as I switched to the lower six-string neck to jam out with Sammy.

Near the two-and-a-half minute point in this song, we appeared to wind up this song with Lisa singing:

“Why should we be apart?

Baby, you know I love you,

Cross my heart.“

Eda did a typical drum run to ‘end the song’ with all of us stopping our playing. All of us turned to stare at our drummer, as the arena was dead silent for a few moments. On the large video screens, it soon showed E reaching towards a storage compartment on the side of her snare drum. With everything still quiet, she pulled out a small black remote control device and pointed it at the video screens. With an exaggerated ‘button push’, the screens went blank for a moment. With the crowd’s focus on the blacked out screens, we turned back to them and waited for the ‘static sounding hiss’ to surprise everyone. We then restarted this song as Lisa immediately sang,

“Don’t be cruel,

This time when Eda did her ending drum run, Sammy and I did a little running jump and stuck the landing on her final drum strike. Lynette also timed her ‘finger drag’ over her keys perfectly with our impromptu sprint-jump-landing action.

The crowd exploded at this real conclusion to our Elvis cover. Lisa, the biggest show-off in our band, couldn’t help herself by adding in a ‘bad’, definitely not deep Elvis voice, “Thank you ... Thank-you-very-much.”

When the crowd noise died down some, Lisa’s best friend Tempe yelled, “That was awful, just plain awful, Bricky!” which caused an eruption of laughter and applause for from the naked students in the inner section of the crowd. Lisa sauntered to the front of the stage where Tempe was standing and knelt down to give her bestie a sweet kiss. With that smooch shown up on the video screens, it caused a round of ‘Ohs’, ‘Ahs’ and a few ‘gasps’ from the crowd.

The naked Jazz Band members walked back out to their elevated platform area as Lisa returned to her mic-stand area. I quickly swapped out my double-neck guitar for Silverburst with Sammy moving up to Lynette’s main keyboards. As Cano walked by me on the main stage, I whispered, “Sing pretty, Beautiful,” to her.

Lynette’s bluesy, True Love was a smashing success, and definitely fit the concert’s vibe better after our cover of Don’t Be Cruel, than it would have between Rock On and YYZ where we originally had it. We all loved that Ian and Kate both moved out onto the curved stairs prior to matching their trumpet or trombone solos to my wicked blues riffs on Silverburst. I was pleased that Lynette did a wonderful introduction of Kate Van Dorn after her song’s conclusion.

As my bandmates and I swapped out our instruments for the next song, Sammy, Lisa and Lynette could feel the tension building up within me as I continually fidgeted with the guitar strap on my twelve-string Ibanez acoustic guitar. They knew that this next song was going to be the hardest song I would ever have to sing in my life. Looking up at my soulmate as she adjusted a few things on her keyboards at the mid-level stage area, I had to wipe a tear from my eye as I thought about what I was going to say to the audience and more importantly ... to my sweet angel, Canella.

“We’ve all got your back, and I’ll fill in the vocals for you should you stumble on it, Mike,” Lynette said through my ear-monitors. I simply nodded in thanks to Lynette and then turned to face the crowd.

With my slightly distressed looking face up on the video screens, a hushed murmur spread through the JLC like a wave rippling through a pond when a stone is thrown into it. I took a deep breath and a quick glance at Lisa and Sammy as they stood in front of Cano’s keyboard station. I stepped to the front of the stage, paused for another moment and then said, “I’ve never sung this next song in front of an audience, and I doubt I’ll ever sing it again after tonight. This song is probably the most important song I’ve ever written because it’s ... it’s specifically for one very special girl and the little bundle of joy that’s growing inside her.” I paused to take another big lungful of air and added, “Please pray that I can get through this for her, and then, uh, forgive me if I can’t.” With a slight hitch in my voice, I softly said, “This is called, Humble and Kind. I hope you enjoy it.”

I glanced up at the luxury boxes to my left and saw my sweet Canella leaning over the edge of the railing, waving her hand at me. When I nodded to her, she blew me an ‘air-kiss’. A jolt of energy suddenly coursed through my body as I swore I could feel her lips on my tear-stained cheek.

After I wiped my cheeks and turned back to my bandmates, Lisa smiled at me and then said, “Nella’s spirit will help you, Mike. I just know it.”

With a smile at my friends, I said, “Let’s do this,” and started to strum out the opening chords to Humble and Kind, a future Tim McGraw monster song.

(Note: Humble and Kind was written by Lori McKenna in 2016. It was the second release from Tim McGraw’s album, Damn Country Music. Ms. McKenna also recorded this song on her album, The Bird and the Rifle. McGraw’s version won numerous accolades in 2016, including the CMA’s, the Grammy’s and the AMA’s awards for Country Song of the Year. It also won the CMT’s video of the year award. It reached the number one position on the country music charts in both Canada and the United States. If you haven’t checked it out, please do so and you’ll see why I have it as the ‘most important song’ that Mike ever wrote in this story.)

With the Time Bandettes playing their sweet backing music, I walked to the center of the stage and sang:

The Time Bandettes created a beautiful harmony with my voice on the chorus as we sang:

After that chorus, we played for a few measures and then Sammy sweetly said, “Sing it for JM, Mike.”

A tear escaped the corner of my eye at those words but Canella’s spirit allowed me to sing:

Always stay humble and kind.” (After this second verse, we all harmonized on the chorus.)

As we got set to play a short soft instrumental section, Kalena and Viktoriya Kharlamov walked out from the side of the stage with their violins and effortlessly added their heavenly Stradivarius sounds to our soft melody. Viktoriya, my time-traveling lover walked up to me as she played and whispered in my ear, “Бог, God gave special children to both of us, yes?”

“He sure did. He sure did,” I replied with a nod over towards Kalena, and then up towards the luxury boxes and Canella.

After Kalena and Viktoriya led the melody for about twenty-five seconds, Sammy, with her seafoam green Strat upped the intensity of this instrumental section. Eda and Lisa heard that improvised changed and easily upped their playing to keep pace with Sammy’s edgier sounds. I just smiled at my grinning redheaded friend as that was just what this song needed at that moment. With twenty seconds of edginess, those three eased back to our previous tone as I got set to sing:

We finished off my Christmas present-song for Canella and JM with our seven combined instruments playing an easy melody. My bandmates dropped out to let me finish this song with just my twelve-string Ibanez guitar. As my guitar sounds died out, the crowd’s murmuring increased and then changed into loud and respectful applause.

When I looked up the luxury boxes after humbly acknowledging the crowd’s applause, I could see Mrs. Hulshoff, my mother and her sister, Annetta comforting Canella. I could easily tell my sweet angel was crying on her mother’s shoulder. I took a deep breath and looked to the arena’s ceiling and then felt the unmistakable crackling of a ‘time-stop’ bubble forming around me, my band members on the stage and surprisingly around one person in the luxury boxes – Canella.

When Canella realized that everyone around her was frozen in place, she turned and looked down at the frozen crowd and then down to us on the stage. As soon as she saw that we weren’t frozen like the rest of the arena, she moved to the railing and cried out, “I love you, Mike!”

“I love you, too! Nella!” I replied as I moved out onto the walkway to get as close as possible to this sweet girl.

As she leaned as far out of the luxury box as possible, Nella said, “I just loved that song, and even though I can’t believe it really happened, I’m sure I felt little James Michael jump in my tummy when you sang those, ‘... don’t forget turn back around. And help the next one in line,’ lyrics.

“We don’t doubt that that happened, Nella!” Lynette yelled from the front edge of the stage.

With a teary cry, Canella said, “Just know that I’ll make sure that JM learns everything you said in that song, Mike, and that he always stays humble and kind. I will, too!”

“We all need to stay humble and kind, Nella,” Sammy shouted from beside Lynette and Lisa.

“Are you truly alright, Canella?” I asked after a brief period of silence.

“I’m beyond great, Mike. The doctors are amazed at JM’s progress, and your mom has been a big help. I know you can’t really stop doing this, but please don’t worry about me. Me and JM are gonna be just fine.”

“Okay. I’ll try, Baby. I love you,” I said.

“We all love you, Nella!” Eda said from the upper stage area.

“I love all you guys.” As she stood back away from the luxury box’s railing, Canella added, “I’m enjoying my first live concert. Finish it out strong, okay.”

“You need to get back against your mom’s shoulders, Nella and then we’ll get back to the concert,” I said as I turned to walk back to my pre-time-stop position.

“I remember how to do this time-stop stuff, Mike,” Canella loudly chuckled as she resumed her prior positioning.

With Canella, my bandmates and me back where we needed to be, the energy field dissipated and the crowd’s respectful applause resumed and the stage lights began to dim until only the pale blue stage lights illuminated our area. My bandmates and I quickly moved to swap out our instruments, while Kalena and Viktoriya moved off the stage. As we were doing that, the Jazz Band members slowly walked out onto the upper performance level. Sammy joined Lynette on the mid-level area at the secondary keyboard spot in front of E’s drum kit.

“Are you kids good for us to start the helicopter?” Devin asked through our ear-monitors. After our affirmations, the massive stage’s two overhead spotlights began to sweep the darkened audience. The ‘whoop-whoop-whoop’ sounds of a helicopter increased in volume as Lisa and I stood side-by-side enjoying the looks on the illuminated audience members’ face as the spots slowly passed over the floor and lower bowl of the arena. A few ‘shouts’ and ‘hollers’ were heard from the crowd as the helicopter sound increased in volume as our cover of Pink Floyd’s Happiest Days of Our Lives, and Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 was about to begin on our stage.

After our sound check this morning, Devin and Phil asked if we had anyone we wanted to ‘spotlight’ during opening of these songs. Devin laughed when I identified our ‘target’. Devin and Phil made sure they knew where this naked student was in the inner walkway area, so Lisa and I enjoyed seeing the overhead spots narrow their beams and slowly zero in on our new friend.

The large video screens came to life with Mr. Feelt’s massively hairy and bearded face peering out at the crowd. His eyes were enhanced to glow as he looked down at the naked students. With the overhead spotlights now narrowly focused to a three-foot diameter beam, they stopped on Guelph’s massive football player, Frank Patton, who had helped us unload our equipment this morning.

A moment later, Mr. Feelt’s booming voice echoed, “You! Yes you! Stand still, laddie!”

That was our signal to begin our cover of Happiest Days of Our Lives. Sammy and Lynette handled the keyboards, as Lisa and I had the whole main stage to ourselves on these two songs. Our sound and recording engineer, Wilson Sikma ran my vocals through a voice modulator as I sang:

However carefully hidden by the kids. (Mr. Feelt’s voiced a loud cackling laughter after this line.)

The best part of our performing these two Pink Floyd songs (besides actually playing them) was the humorous video on the large screens that Devin and CBS Records had managed to arrange with the Charles Schulz’s, or the Peanuts Gang’s people. As we played and sang these songs, the Peanuts gang: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Sally, Pigpen, Peppermint-Patty, and Marci appeared on the video screens over the stage. Those characters did a great job carrying out the intent and the lyrics of these two songs.

Immediately after I finished with the distorted lyrics of Happiest Days, Eda fired into the wicked transition on her massive drums as ‘Pigpen’ did likewise on his small ‘four-piece’ kit. The other Bandettes created a haunting, repetitive vocalized, “Ahh, Ahh, Ahh,” sound as we prepared to begin, Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.

When Lisa saw ‘Snoopy’ playing his stand-up bass on the video screen, she said in my ear, “Yes. Snoopy’s me.”

Just as Sammy gave out the haunting scream to initiate the beginning of Another Brick, ‘Lucy’ was seen on the large screens screaming her head off. I immediately sang Roger Water’s classic lyrics, “We don’t need no education.“ I couldn’t help but smile when I saw ‘Charlie Brown’ up on the screen with a megaphone ‘singing’ those and the rest of the first verse. When I wasn’t singing any lyrics, the video screens showed the Peanuts Gang’s band playing or the other characters acting out school scenes.

When the Time Bandettes and the Jazz Band members repeated the verse’s lyrics, the school children at Charlie Brown’s school appeared to sing this song. The naked students at the front of the stage were laughing and pointing at the video screens as the scenes switched to various Peanuts’ classroom scenes or their band playing.

With the repeated lyrics finished, I moved over to the curved walkway. I simply loved that I was going to get to play my favorite guitarist, David Gilmour’s awesome Another Brick guitar solo. With my purple and black ‘Cuda Fender across my groin, I ripped into this killer solo with as much gusto as I could muster. It took every second of my almost two minute solo to make my complete circuit around the curved walkway. I enjoyed turning this way and that as the crowd roared at the sound my Christmas present from my girls created on this song.

Stepping back onto the main stage at the end of my solo, Lynette and Sammy performed a beautiful, minute-and-a-half dueling keyboard montage. The video screens alternatingly showed Lynette working her double-decker keyboards, Sammy tickling the ebonies and ivories of her Yamaha Stage Piano, and ‘Schroeder’ playing at his brown baby-grand piano. Lisa and I enjoyed doing a little bare-back-to-bare-back easy jamming at the base of the curved stairs as we watched our two keyboard bandmates create some beautiful music.

With keyboard solos coming to an end, we toned down the intensity of Another Brick. Lisa whispered in my ear, “This is so cool,” when Kimmie Melanson, the assistant recording engineer brought back the helicopter sound over the arena’s speakers. The stage went dark with the duel over the stage spotlights once more focused on our new friend, Frank Patton. The shocked looking naked student suddenly lifted his equally naked girlfriend, Reena Devlin up in front of his now smiling face to have her stunningly built body displayed on the video screens. Regardless of whose body was seen, Mr. Feelt’s distorted voice cried,

“If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding.

How can you have any pudding, if you don’t eat your meat?

You! Yes, you! Behind the beautiful brunette, stand still, laddie!“

The helicopter sounds suddenly ended, the spots were turned off and the arena was in pitch-black silence. For three seconds, there was surprisingly pure peace in the JLC. As the arena lights slowly increased, Sammy said, “I hope you don’t mind if we take a thirty, thirty-five minute break. But don’t fear as our friends in the Shania Twain Band will soon be out to give you your country-rock fix.”

“See you soon!” Lisa added with a wave of her hand before both of us slowly jogged off the main stage at eight-oh-nine-pm.

“You guys were awesome out there!” my best friend Paul said as we came off the stage to stand next to him and Shania. Both of them were wearing their souvenir NIS robes as the stage workers on this side of the stage got Cathy’s portable platform in position to move it out onto the main stage.

“That was fun, but it was a lot harder work than I thought it would be,” I replied with beads of sweat rolling off my forehead and over my bare chest and buttocks. I was sure I could use a shower as the stage lights and all the movements out on the stage gave me a good workout. I then added, “I wonder if there’s a nice comfy chair back here to take a load off my feet.”

“Whoa, Cuda. Aren’t you kinda forgetting something here?” Shania chuckled as Cathy stepped over to us when Lynette, Sammy and Eda joined out little four person huddle.

“Ahhh, aren’t you playing with these guys on their first couple of songs?” Lisa chuckled and gave my right arm a little shot.

I dropped my chin to my chest and whispered, “Oh, crap yes.” I immediately thought, ‘I need my guitar, you dumb-ass, ‘ and saw a stage hand beside Cathy’s platform. Getting his attention, I asked, “Could you grab my Gibson Silverburst guitar from the main stage for me, please and thanks.”

“Garrett has you covered, Mike,” the stage worker said as he pointed to one of his buddies walking off the darkened stage with my guitar. He then added, “Devin called us on the walkie-talkie and told us to bring it over here for you.”

“Thanks, guys,” I replied as I took my favorite axe from the grinning stage hand.

When the last of the stagehands walked off the stage after putting up the last of the black screens in front of our instruments to eliminate any possible distraction from seeing them while Shania’s band played, we heard Devin asked in our ear-monitors,” Are you Twainers all set to go?”

With Cathy up and ready on her portable platform, she looked at me to see if I was ready. I gave her a nod, so Shania’s drummer replied, “The four of us on this side are ready, Devin.”

We immediately heard Steve’s voice say, “Kalena and me are all set over here, Devin,” through our monitors.

“Okay guys. Have fun out there ... Hammer down, Cathy,” Devin said.

In the relatively dark off stage area, the Time Bandettes and I gave Cathy various forms of good luck, and then Shania’s drummer stomped out the driving ‘Boom-Boom-pow-pause’ rhythm to start off Any Man of Mine on her double bass drums and two floor toms. On the second measure of beats, Phil the Flash timed the mini-floor spots on the front of Cathy’s platform to flash, as well as turning on the mini-spots that lite up her bass drums. With Cathy’s repetitive driving beats, the stage workers started to move her platform, as well as Steve’s unlit platform out onto the main darkened stage.

The crowd roared as the lighted-flashing platform was spun around twice as the stage-hands moved it into its final position. After Cathy had completed eight of the rehearsed twelve drum cycles, the two overhead spots illuminated the naked drummer girl’s as she bounced on her drum throne. Cathy’s naked image was seen on the large video screens as her jet-black, mid-back length hair flew all around her face, chest and back as she punished her royal blue Ludwig drums. Her large but firm ‘C-sized’ breasts danced with each powerful tom-strike. When the bass-drum-camera’s video showed Cathy’s powerful leg action, you could catch a few glimpses of her neatly trimmed, diamond-shaped pubic hairs above her vulva.

From the other side of the darkened stage, Kalena had walked out onto the elevated stage with her violin as Steve’s keyboard platform was moved and locked into position. Right after Cathy’s twelfth drum cycle, a spot shone on Kalena’s petite but sinewy naked body as her sweet Stradivarius created the well-known sounds of Shania’s Any Man of Mine. Kalena was as cute as button with her golden blonde hair falling in ringlets along her cheeks and neck areas. Her small ‘Bs’ barely moved on her chest as she drew her bow over her exquisite violin’s strings. My time-traveling daughter had a ‘pie-shaped’ wedge of wispy light blonde hairs above her shaven vaginal area. As she swayed to the music Kalena’s lower, wafer-thin lips peeked out for those close enough to her position to clearly see.

Paul and I walked out in front of Cathy’s platform and joined in with Kalena’s main melody after she played eight measures. Steve, with his Korg keyboards on his now lit up platform, joined in with us to create the full sound of this country-rock song. After twenty-four full measures of music, Shania confidently strutted out of the shadows and sang:

The crowd ate up fifteen-year-old Shania as she pranced around the main stage. If Shania was apprehensive about being naked in front of ten-thousand-plus people and a national television audience, she definitely didn’t show it. Her teased shoulder length dirty-blonde hair bounced under her red cowboy hat against her lightly tanned upper back area. Shania also wore a red leather belt, cinched loosely around her slender waist that matched her stylish cowboy boots. My best friend’s girlfriend’s small, firm upturned breasts delightfully danced on her chest as she glided across the stage in front of Paul, Cathy and me. Similar to Lynette, Shania had a narrow landing strip of brown pubic hairs above shaved peach-like vagina. Even as she sashayed around the stage, her small vaginal lips remained relatively hidden from ours or the television cameras’ view.

I played my Silverburst guitar, and Sammy joined us with her jet-black Stratocaster on the STB’s second song, That Don’t Impress Me Much. Steve’s keyboards and Cathy’s driving drums took center stage on this upbeat song. Cathy showed off impressive drumming skills as arms flew out to the side to hammer her high-hats as she maintained a tight beat with her double-bass, snare and pedal controlled high-hats (checkout Shania’s real drummer, Elijah Wood’s close up drum cam video of this song on U-Tube – it’s excellent! – see the ‘Afterward‘ with the concerts’ playlists).