Why, oh why did Jim stop wearing a tie? We attended the very first concert of The Best Damn Tour, in Victoria, BC. Ten seconds into “Girlfriend”… and… I can’t really say what shocked us more: Jim waving to us in front row or the realisation that he was wearing a tie. Probably the latter. Come to think of it, maybe not, maybe it’s a tie (pun intended). We looked at each other with expression like this , and both pointed to our throats. There was no point talking, the screaming was so loud  that the plaster was falling off the ceiling of the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. But we loved it! Looked so cool with the untucked shirt. Jim certainly looked spiffy. So yeah – the tie was there on every single one of the 37 concerts of the North American leg of the tour. Then there was a four week  break and then the European leg started. The first show was in Glasgow, Scotland. All we got from there was a grainy YouTube video but... did our eyes deceive us?  Jim seemed to be tie-less!!! We exchanged a couple of  breathless emails of the "OMG! Did you see???"-kind but concluded that, "Maybe… um… who knows. Can't really see, right?" The second show was in Glasgow too and... no tie either! Man. What’s going on? After the third show in Manchester: we sadly concluded that the tie was a thing of the past. Oh well. You gotta take all the blows that life serves, pick yourself up and continue. But it was nagging us so much that we had to ask da man. Inconspicuously. DA MAN obliged and responded, "I just kept getting the tie caught in my guitar, so I ditched it." Well! We attended 3 shows and we took our eyes off Jim for maybe 12 seconds in total. That’s an average of 2 seconds per show per each of us. The rest of time our eyes were glued to Jimmy. We never saw the tie getting caught in any guitar. Electric or acoustic. So ever since then we have been banging our heads trying to figure out why Jim stopped wearing a tie. Here are some possibilities. Yeah. Possibilities. Because sadly, we will never know the truth. Jim found a better place to clip his iPhone, so he didn't need the tie anymore. As you may or may not know, his iPhone is glued to his hand when he is not playing. It got caught in the lift door and stayed on the ground floor while Jim headed for the third floor. After deciding to "change it up a bit" and try to tie a double Windsor knot, Jim tossed the tie out of the window in sheer frustration. Jim got sick of his mates back East going, "Did you just come from the office?", "Are you going to the opera?", "Who got married?", "Who died?". Jim stumbled on this article (BBC, no less people!) and … yeah: “Sheesh. What was I thinking? Never, EVER again!” Jim realised that he could snooze 14 secs longer in the dressing room if he ditched the tie. The Red Snapper ate it. (Yeah. Lame, we have to admit. But we are running out of reasons here!) Sammy hid the tie under the sofa in desperate attempt to keep Jim from going away again. Jim forgot to pack it and it’s hard to find a tie that matches his blue eyes. You have to agree: these are all plausible explanations. But, sadly, we will never know for sure.