Part of the gravy that comes with living in a city with a population and venues large enough to attract major acts is the opportunity to see the artists we idolize in person without having to travel a great distance to do so. Last night my teenage daughter went to her first ever concert: Muse with Silversun Pickups at Rexall Place. Being the nostalgic sort that I am, this got me reminiscing about the very first concert I attended.
I was 15 when my older brother dropped off my nephew and I at the Coliseum to see Bachman-Turner Overdrive who were my favourite band circa 1976. The 2 opening acts were Charlie Gearheart & Goose Creek Symphony and Trooper. The heavy-guitar loving crowd was in no mood for Goose Creek's hippy-dippy country-rock. Their version of Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz generated a little polite applause but, for them, that was about as good as it got that night. Not surprisingly, Trooper went over much better even though they only had a couple of minor hits under their belts at the time. I remember lead singer Ra McGuire being particularly energetic and entertaining.
The headliners did not disappoint- me at least. The music was deliciously loud and the band's giant multi-coloured neon light gear logo above the stage was really dazzling. Randy Bachman and Fred Turner looked even fatter in person than on their album covers. Bachman's guitar solos that night were relatively brief but unquestionably brilliant. Meanwhile their other guitarist, Blair Thornton, was almost as good during his own short solos. I found it amusing that Bachman's introduction of the only 2 quieter/jazzy songs in their catalogue (Blue Collar and Lookin' Out For #1) as "two songs that are very close to our hearts" served as a cue for about a third of the audience to go for a bathroom break. They opened with Take It Like A Man, played most of the songs I wanted to hear and threw in a couple I'd never heard before for good measure. Takin' Care of Business opened the 3 song encore which ended with Stayed Awake All Night which is exactly what I did that summer night lying in bed at home with an unwipeable grin on my face and my ears still ringing.
That concert marked the first time that I smelled weed and the first time that I saw glow sticks. I got a really good view of them when some moron pelted my nephew with one that left his neck and upper arm glowing with fluorescent green spatters for B.T.O.'s entire set. I also remember The Edmonton Journal's overly negative review of the show the next evening with the headline "A lot of sameness in banana city" referring to the idiots who were chucking stuff as "dilated hockey pucks"- whatever the hell that means.
Picking up my daughter at the LRT station after last night's concert and reading her posts on Twitter during the show and this morning, I get the impression that her first concert was as thrilling for her as mine was for me. Hopefully over time it will prove to be just as memorable too.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Ugly (VOL. I)
For years and years I've been a sports fan. This may or may not mean that I'm an expert on sports but I'm pretty sure it's made me at least somewhat of an expert on sports fans. Just like the depression-inducing 6 o'clock news does on a nightly basis, accentuating the negative makes for a more memorable viewing experience. Therefore I'm going to conveniently skip over the mundane actions of intelligent/reasonable people such as myself and cast the spotlight on the ugly fans. Does one have to be an ugly person to be considered an ugly fan? No, but it's certainly not a bad thing to have on the resume if that's the way you're leaning.
Here are the ugly ones who irk me the most in no particular order of loathesomeness:
The Contrarian- This is the sad individual who is so desperate for attention that they are more than willing to accept boatloads of the negative variety simply to advance their incomprehensibly misguided and twisted agenda. A person who moves to City B from City A but continues to avidly support teams from their hometown is not a Contrarian. Their attitude actually makes more than a small degree of sense. I'm talking about the bright-light who hails from City A, determines which teams annoy City A fans the most and then loudly and boisterously throws his support behind his hometown rival for perverse reasons that only he can possibly understand.
The Party Animal- Bars are in the business of getting people drunk in public. Liquor stores exist to allow people to get drunk in their own homes. Meanwhile, stadiums and arenas sell great quantities of grossly overpriced, underchilled and watery beer to idiots. Party Animals at sporting events are like the rest of us in that they want to support their favourite team. It usually all goes south however, about 2 hours in when these pinheads get liquored up enough to add stumbling, spilling, bad cheerleading, public nudity/urinating/vomitting and fighting to their list of fun gameday activities. The continual trips to the beer stand and the bathroom are a real treat as well for us poor suckers who simply want to watch and enjoy the friggin' game.
The Showoff (a.k.a. The Know-Nothing Know-It-All)- Some of us call others showoffs due to pure jealousy. That type of showoff has at least a modicum of talent which causes those of us with inferiority complexes to start pulling bushels of green leaves off of the envy tree. The ugly sports fan showoff has no discernable skills but does possess just enough actual knowledge to dupe his gullible/apathetic disciples into thinking he's an expert analyst. As someone who closely follows sports, I can't count the number of times I've wanted to throttle some loudmouthed moron sitting behind me at the stadium or arena who spends an entire game spewing his half-baked theories and factually incorrect information to his wife, his kid, his friend or whoever. The showoff thinks that his little audience is lapping up his dreck because it's just so profound when, in fact, they are simply too blindly loyal, lazy or weak-minded to do us all a favour and tell him to shut the hell up.
Negatron- Don't be fooled by this deeply troubled individual's superheroish monicker. This is a person whose every word and action is a desperate cry for help. How is it that Negatron emerges from his dank and drab lair only to show up at various sporting events? After yet another uneventful week working at a dead-end job where he earns and receives zero respect, Negatron frees himself from his mousy/indifferent wife and his shiftless/overfed kids for a few hours of the only thing that even comes close to bringing some pleasure to his doomed existence: exposing innocents like me to his unending negativity. What irks me the most about Negatron is, as sad and pathetic as he may be, he easily and often sucks me in and therefore 'wins'. As a rule I try not to be critical of my own teams but sometimes they simply make it impossible not to be. On those occasions, I want to let loose some negativity but I can't because Negatron has long since beaten me to the punch. I just want him to be proven wrong even if it means having to vocally defend the undefendable actions of the hapless members of my team. Nobody really wins in this scenario but Negatron gets to 'happily' slink back to his cave until my team provides him with the next opportunity to bring me down.
Gravy Guy- Okay, this one doesn't exist but to uphold the integrity of this blog, I'm going to make it work, damn it! Gravy Guy insists on putting gravy on everything available to him at the stadium: his fries, onion rings, burger, hot dog, pizza, nachos, diet Coke, ice cream, Twizzlers, mini-donuts, coffee, beer etc.. Once I even saw some disgusting pig double dip his corn dog in a vat of the stuff meant for the public before his nephew's wife blew the whistle on him and he was banished from the concession area forever.
Here are the ugly ones who irk me the most in no particular order of loathesomeness:
The Contrarian- This is the sad individual who is so desperate for attention that they are more than willing to accept boatloads of the negative variety simply to advance their incomprehensibly misguided and twisted agenda. A person who moves to City B from City A but continues to avidly support teams from their hometown is not a Contrarian. Their attitude actually makes more than a small degree of sense. I'm talking about the bright-light who hails from City A, determines which teams annoy City A fans the most and then loudly and boisterously throws his support behind his hometown rival for perverse reasons that only he can possibly understand.
The Party Animal- Bars are in the business of getting people drunk in public. Liquor stores exist to allow people to get drunk in their own homes. Meanwhile, stadiums and arenas sell great quantities of grossly overpriced, underchilled and watery beer to idiots. Party Animals at sporting events are like the rest of us in that they want to support their favourite team. It usually all goes south however, about 2 hours in when these pinheads get liquored up enough to add stumbling, spilling, bad cheerleading, public nudity/urinating/vomitting and fighting to their list of fun gameday activities. The continual trips to the beer stand and the bathroom are a real treat as well for us poor suckers who simply want to watch and enjoy the friggin' game.
The Showoff (a.k.a. The Know-Nothing Know-It-All)- Some of us call others showoffs due to pure jealousy. That type of showoff has at least a modicum of talent which causes those of us with inferiority complexes to start pulling bushels of green leaves off of the envy tree. The ugly sports fan showoff has no discernable skills but does possess just enough actual knowledge to dupe his gullible/apathetic disciples into thinking he's an expert analyst. As someone who closely follows sports, I can't count the number of times I've wanted to throttle some loudmouthed moron sitting behind me at the stadium or arena who spends an entire game spewing his half-baked theories and factually incorrect information to his wife, his kid, his friend or whoever. The showoff thinks that his little audience is lapping up his dreck because it's just so profound when, in fact, they are simply too blindly loyal, lazy or weak-minded to do us all a favour and tell him to shut the hell up.
Negatron- Don't be fooled by this deeply troubled individual's superheroish monicker. This is a person whose every word and action is a desperate cry for help. How is it that Negatron emerges from his dank and drab lair only to show up at various sporting events? After yet another uneventful week working at a dead-end job where he earns and receives zero respect, Negatron frees himself from his mousy/indifferent wife and his shiftless/overfed kids for a few hours of the only thing that even comes close to bringing some pleasure to his doomed existence: exposing innocents like me to his unending negativity. What irks me the most about Negatron is, as sad and pathetic as he may be, he easily and often sucks me in and therefore 'wins'. As a rule I try not to be critical of my own teams but sometimes they simply make it impossible not to be. On those occasions, I want to let loose some negativity but I can't because Negatron has long since beaten me to the punch. I just want him to be proven wrong even if it means having to vocally defend the undefendable actions of the hapless members of my team. Nobody really wins in this scenario but Negatron gets to 'happily' slink back to his cave until my team provides him with the next opportunity to bring me down.
Gravy Guy- Okay, this one doesn't exist but to uphold the integrity of this blog, I'm going to make it work, damn it! Gravy Guy insists on putting gravy on everything available to him at the stadium: his fries, onion rings, burger, hot dog, pizza, nachos, diet Coke, ice cream, Twizzlers, mini-donuts, coffee, beer etc.. Once I even saw some disgusting pig double dip his corn dog in a vat of the stuff meant for the public before his nephew's wife blew the whistle on him and he was banished from the concession area forever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)