Christopher John, Jesse Dryfhout, Nathan Wylie and Karl Willaume have played many shows since they formed Stabilo in high school, but none quite like their gigs opening for INXS a few weeks ago.
"It was awesome," says Dryfhout, who made note of their May 14 show at Toronto's Air Canada Centre. "It was one of the best shows of our lives."
"It was a dream come true," adds John.
Although it can be nerve-wracking to open for another band, especially for a big name act at a large venue, Stabilo received positive feedback from their experience.
"We started out a little nervous," says John. "Not knowing how another band's fans are going to react to you, whether they're just going to be impatient, wanting you to get off the stage so they can see the band they came for. But it was actually an overwhelmingly good reaction."
"There were a couple of people with 'We're here for Stabilo' signs held up, so that was cool," says Dryfhout. "I mean, it's always been the sort of thing with our band that we'll have so many people go, 'Oh, you're that band?' as soon as we play 'Everybody.'
"When it gets around to that part of the set, people are like, 'Oh, right on, I didn't know they were going to be playing here tonight.' And then they get into us a bit more. It's nice to get everybody's hands in the air. It just went better than we ever hoped it would.
"And we haven't played on too many stages where you could actually walk as far as your patch chord would let you."
While Stabilo's current tour with Montreal rockers Mobile brings them back to smaller stages, Dryfhout notes that they can sometimes be more intimidating than playing the ACC.
"That's a totally different experience. I mean, you get on a big stage in front of a big crowd and it's almost as if there's more anonymity there because you can't really see many people. The bigger the crowd, the less it is individuals. So it's almost more nerve-wracking playing for a smaller crowd of people, when you can see their faces clearly."
"And see them yawning," adds John.