by Shania Twain
Since I’d had a base in French from my bilingual exposure growing up in Northern Ontario, I had an ear for the language. We scanned the French-speaking countries, and when we toured Switzerland as one of those on the list, we were captivated by the dramatic views of the Alps and Lake Geneva’s stunning shade of emerald. The food was exquisite, with everything from rustic to gastronomic. The people came across stern and distant, at first, but we figured we were looking for somewhere to keep to ourselves anyway, as a portion of our year would always be spent traveling internationally for work.
The château we found had world-class views from every window and was a historic landmark, with impressive architecture and design. This was the place we wanted to be. Our plan was to finish renovating by the end of the year, just as the tour was wrapping up. Mutt flew back and forth to oversee the work on the house; although I couldn’t be there, I’d direct the renovation and decorating from a seat on the tour bus, a set of blueprints spread out before me. Living in Saint Regis Falls permanently was not our plan; after four years of near constant travel—and my largely nomadic life prior to that—I was so looking forward to putting down roots. But until then, I had another nine months ahead of me, playing sixty-four dates in sixty-one cities.
From March through June, following our return from Down Under, our convoy of buses and equipment trucks crisscrossed North America, from as far east as Moncton, New Brunswick, our first show; to Vancouver, British Columbia, on Canada’s West Coast; and all the way down to Jacksonville, Florida. The trip to Australia was particularly rewarding for me, knowing that my music had reached the other end of the planet, literally. I took advantage of the outback experience and made a horse trek through the bush with some local ranchers one afternoon on a down day from the tour. We were lucky to come across a herd of kangaroo, which was such a rush, and I felt as if I were seeing storybook creatures right before my eyes. Come On Over brought me to this exotic, faraway land, giving me one of the highest-selling albums ever, reaching fifteen times platinum and spending nineteen weeks at number one and 165 weeks in the Top 100. In Australia, it is the bestselling album of the 1990s.
A music tour very much resembles a traveling circus. The Come On Over tour employed more than one hundred people: besides me and the nine-member band, there were drivers, roadies, soundmen, riggers, caterers, carpenters—you name it. I take off my hat to these skilled folks for the dedication they exhibited every day. Their job was harder than mine: the road crew essentially constructs the equivalent of a good-sized house, then tears it down and packs it up, four or five times a week for months at a clip. As Jackson Browne sang in his affectionate tribute to his roadies, “The Load Out,” “They’re the first to come and the last to leave,” and although they traveled the same number of miles that I did, they probably got half the sleep.
The monotony and pressure of road life get to everyone, not just the star, and under those conditions, you bond together like family, especially since you are far away from home and loved ones. We all had jobs to do, but we did have ourselves some fun. To break up the daily grind, I initiated a “crew lottery”: at every sound check, I would pull a name out of a hat or a bowl, and the winner would receive $500. On weekends, we had two draws. A small thing, perhaps, but it helped to keep up morale. Plus, I got a real kick out of watching the smiles and hearing the cheers each time a crew member’s name was announced.
One time I just wanted to give the bus and truck drivers a break. I forget where we were and where we were going (after a while, the cities seem to blend in to each other), but as a surprise/prank, I hired substitute drivers to drive the tour buses, and one separate party bus for our drivers to ride on as passengers instead of drivers, so for a change they could sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. But they didn’t know this yet. I stocked the party bus with food and refreshments and arranged for a meeting to be called on this bus for all the drivers. Once the last driver was on board, thinking they were about to have a meeting, the hired driver closed the door and drove away, abducting our driver/passengers for the overnight journey to the next city. The initial reaction of many of the drivers was panic. They were anxious and uncomfortable with the fact that someone else would be sitting in their driver’s seat, operating their bus, and don’t forget, as it was a surprise, they hadn’t grabbed personal effects like cell phones or toothbrushes. They just weren’t prepared for this surprise kidnapping. In the end, they had a good time and were grateful for the break and thoughtfulness.
Practical jokes are a time-honored tradition of the road, and if I say so myself, mine were pretty creative, especially two that I played on my band. We had a rare break coming up, and I wanted to throw a surprise appreciation lunch for everyone, with the help of a handful of crew members who were sworn to secrecy. So that no one would suspect anything, we planned to hold it in the afternoon at the arena I was playing, since that’s when most of the crew would be there anyway, loading in the equipment.
The band members were informed that I wished to meet with them privately before sound check to discuss an upcoming concert that would be filmed for a TV special. In general, musicians, like most onstage performers, pay attention to their appearance. Sometimes to an obsessive degree. With that in mind, I had ordered them the skimpiest, tightest spandex outfits you had ever seen, like something a wrestler would squeeze into. Everything bared and nothing spared. To top it off, they came in garish blue, pink, yellow, and purple. At the meeting, I excitedly called up the band members one by one and handed them their outfits.
You should have seen the horrified expressions on their faces, and you could all but read their minds: I’m expected to walk out onstage in this? And for a performance that’s going to be filmed, for posterity?!? Even Andy Cichon, our hunky bassist, who has a buff bodybuilder’s bod, was visibly uncomfortable with the painted-on look of his stage wear. They were all holding them out at arm’s length, as if a skunk had sprayed them.
“Okay, well, go try ’em on!” I said brightly. They eyed one another as if they were thinking, She can’t be serious. “I can’t wait to see you in them!” Oh. My. God. She’s serious. A few minutes later, they emerged stiffly from the dressing room wearing the outfits, not to mention pained expressions, in front of the whole crew. On cue, a marching band came trumpeting in, the caterers rolled in a banquet table full of fabulous fare, a mass of balloons soared over our heads after being released, and the ribbon scoreboard, a band-type screen that wrapped around the venue, flashed the names of everybody on the tour. The cat was out of the bag.
The band members were good sports about it, considering the laugh that everyone had enjoyed at their expense.
If they handed out a prize for Best Gag Played on a Bunch of Musicians, this next one would have brought home the trophy. And it was a high-tech prank to boot. Guitar techs are the people responsible for making sure the guitarists’ instruments are all polished and restrung, tuned, and ready to go. Before one show I conspired with them to detune all the stringed instruments that would be used for “No One Needs to Know,” an all-acoustic number. The techs twisted the tuning pegs this way and that, making for one wince-inducing sound.
Okay, here’s the genius part: of course, I didn’t want to inflict any of this on the audience, so in preparation for this practical joke, I got the crew to secretly record us performing the song the night before. When you’re playing a big stage, where the musicians stand far apart from one another, you don’t hear what the audience hears, only what the soundman sends you through your earpiece.
As we counted in the song, the sound engineer rolled the tape of all the guitars from the night before. The only live sounds actually emanating from the stage were my voice and J. D. Blair’s drums. The audience heard a wonderfully played “No One Needs to Know,” not realizing that the instruments were on tape. And each musician heard only the wretched sound coming out of his sabotaged instrument. Every string, totally out of tune. Best of all, he had no idea that the others were trapped in
the exact same nightmare. As far as he knew, he and he alone was massacring the song. What the hell is going on?! Oh, man, Shania is gonna be pissed! Their panicked expressions had the guitar techs laughing so hard that they nearly passed out.
J.D. kept playing, as of course there was no way of messing up his drums, and he had to be live, so if the band decided to stop in the middle of the song out of confusion, J.D. would be the only one that to the audience would have been noticeably not playing. The other musicians could stop and start off and on in their confusion, but it’s hard to decipher who’s playing what in that song, as it’s a wall of acoustic instruments.
But we were not finished with them yet. Nope. One by one, Brent, Randy, and Andy snuck off to the side of the stage to have one of the guitar techs take the unplayable instruments off their hands and replace them with ones that worked. The techs just ignored them. In that moment, I am sure that three guitar techs could easily have been sent to the hospital with injuries sustained from an out-of-tune guitar employed as a deadly weapon. But all Brent, Randy, and Andy could do was glare at them.
Each of the guys eventually caught on and played air guitar for the rest of the song. The audience never suspected a thing, but only because I managed to keep myself from cracking up in the middle of singing. You have no idea how hard that was.
When you’re on tour, the music usually continues after the show, on the bus. “But that’s your day job. Don’t you get tired of it?” Singing with other people? Never. I passed a number of late nights jamming with the opening act, Leahy. I had seen this eclectic Canadian group consisting of four multitalented brothers and seven sisters, ranging in age from about their early twenties to their midthirties, on the 1998 Juno Awards and thought they would make for a terrific show opener. Not only did they play and sing, but they were also first-rate Irish step dancers. Very impressive.
Whenever we could coordinate our two buses in the convoy to the next town, I would hop on theirs until bedtime. It was crowded, but it seemed the more the merrier. I’d snack on Froot Loops out of the box and join in the laughter and dancing. The girls taught me how to swing dance, and we’d all dance in twos, sister-to-sister, sister-to-brother, and as the girls knew the guy moves, they made great partners for me as well, and I never ran out of partners. The Leahy bus would rock down that highway until the last man was standing. That was usually me.
During the course of the two-year tour, some of the smaller Leahy children sometimes tagged along on the bus as well. I was thankful to be around this close-knit family; it lent me a badly needed sense of reality and kept me from drowning in isolation—an unfortunate consequence of both fame and being on an endless road.
Finding freedom and solitude during touring was not easy for me, so the people who surrounded me were important for keeping my own morale up. I was also feeling the wear from the lack of freedom I had to do simple things like go to a park for a walk by myself or pop out for a pizza without planning it. Doing anything outside the venue walls without planning was almost impossible. I loved being around my road family, but I also liked being out in the world, alone. Sitting on a bench along a river with the world happening around me, lost in my own solitude, anonymous and free to be there undisturbed in my thoughts without having to isolate myself to do it … this I missed.
There were periods I felt like a babysat child while out on tour, someone knowing where I was at all times. Frustrated by the lack of independence, one day I just decided to break away. Completely and irresponsibly ignore security concerns and without a plan, without telling anyone … just walk out. Stomp out like a little kid fed up with being told what to do all the time. At the time what was really going through my head was that I was damned if I was going to live in Michael Jackson–type isolation and seclusion. I imagined how lonely it must’ve been for him; hibernating and hiding from the outside world was something I could not live with. I needed out of the prison bubble and didn’t want to take a simple stroll with a whole production of elaborate disguise and undercover security. I accepted that as my professional life, not my real one!
Wearing some sweats and a cap, I walked out of the venue onto the street and just like that, I was free. It was a show day after sound check, so it was about four in the afternoon. I still had a few hours before showtime, so I picked a direction and just started walking. I felt so free and light. Giddy and chirpy, I skipped along so pleased with myself that I’d made the decision to just take the plunge and head out somewhere on my own. No security, not telling anyone that I was going or where I was going, just like any other normal citizen in the civilized world, I’d simply gone out for a walk. No big deal. I kept my head down for the most part, avoiding eye contact, and for a time I got away with my escape really well. It was a temperate, sunny afternoon, perfect for a stroll, and I was enjoying my freedom adventure thoroughly. Too soon, however, the time came when I had to start heading back to the surreal, real world of my bubble cage.
I got about ten minutes out from the venue and I noticed the streets were getting pretty thick with other walkers. With every block there were more and more strolling bodies that soon became a crowd, and before I knew it, I was locked in the mob of people inching their way to the various entrances of the venue. My venue. Shoulder to shoulder with people wearing my face across their chests and backs, I was right among the audience. So freaky to be walking behind someone, looking eye level at myself on the back of her T-shirt. I thought, Oh no, how am I going to get through this without anyone noticing me? I really got myself into it this time. I actually felt like a naughty child preparing for my scolding once I got in the door. I imagined hearing things like: Where have you been, young lady? We were worried sick about you. You could have gotten yourself into trouble out there. You have a responsibility and you better start taking it more seriously and stop running off like that whenever you feel like it. It was true, I hadn’t thought it through very well with the timing; it hadn’t dawned on me that I was going to be trying to get back into the venue at the same time as twenty thousand other people, all there to see … me, and I’d be standing right among them.
I did not have a cell phone with me, so I had no choice but to blend in with the crowd of twenty thousand or so fans until I made it inside. The thought that I could very easily be late to my own show made me giggle. I resigned myself to the fact that I was in for a scolding and decided to just enjoy the moment. Everyone was all pumped and chattering away. I tuned in to the conversations around me:
“What song do you think she’ll open with?”
“Wonder what Shania will be wearing tonight?”
“I hope she sings ‘You’re Still the One.’ That’s my absolute favorite.”
“I’m gonna try to make it to the stage and get an autograph.”
I allowed myself to become temporarily lost in the audience’s vibe and fantasized that I was there for one of my own favorite artists. I understood how the fans felt as I imagined that every inch toward the entrance was one inch closer to seeing Prince or Michael Jackson, for example, both of whom I adored and had never seen live in concert.
I can’t imagine many performers get the chance to stand anonymously among their fans and experience firsthand the run-up to the show, feel that excitement build. I have to tell you, it was a rush, and something that I will cherish forever. Especially since I probably will have the good sense never to do it again, at least if I don’t want to risk being late for my own show!
Finally, I made it to the entrance. “Where’s your ticket?” demanded the local security guy. Obviously, I didn’t have one.
“It’s me,” I whispered. Not that I expected him to believe me. Before I could find out, a crew member walking by spotted me and whisked me inside. “What were you doing outside?!” were his first words. “Outside.” That word strikes me even now as I reflect. When I was in the sheltered environment of touring, there was a threshold to cross and I went “outside” of it, like passing from one reality into another. Anyway, I ma
de a long story short and told him that I’d gone for a walk and just timed my return badly. He looked at me quizzically, like, “That was a weird thing to do,” and escorted me backstage to prepare for the show.
The North American leg ended on July 1 with a concert in Hollinger Park before twenty-two thousand people, making it the largest event in the history of Timmins. This park is the same park me and my two sisters, Carrie and Jill, walked to in our little threesome, growing up. The pool was just up the road, and the McDonald’s where I worked in high school was directly across the street. In summer the park holds local concert events, one of which I participated in one year with the band Longshot. We entered a talent contest in a “battle of the bands” type category, and we won first place. (In the photo I included of that performance, I’m wearing the mukluks my grandmother gave me.) The park built stages for these events, the same way they built one for me eighteen years later during my Come On Over tour.
I was giddy throughout that entire show, spotting so many familiar faces in the audience. It was nonstop identifying people I knew or recognized, as my eyes shifted and scanned the audience: family, friends, schoolmates I hadn’t seen since high school, neighbors, merchants. I felt like I knew everyone personally, and a sort of hometown pride came over me, knowing they’d all come to celebrate with me. It’s maybe like the way you might feel if you organized a birthday party and a lot of people showed up. It makes you feel cared about, thought of, like your existence has some importance and meaning to them. This is probably ego coming forth, giving a false sense of worth, but after you toil for years to accomplish something, it’s rewarding to know that you are appreciated. I’m not always sure where to draw the line between self-worth and actual worth, I guess. All I know is, that day, I felt as though I’d earned that support. It hadn’t come free, and I was relishing that satisfaction.
