On Concerts

So I went last night to see Pink, or is it P!nk? I never know. In any event, it was grrrreat show! I always forget how many catchy songs she has, and then one comes on, and I'm like, "oh yeah!", and then rock out. It was a very colourful show and was circus themed: there were acrobatics, giant slides, and at one point she got lowered beneath the stage and came back up soaking wet, and then dripped all over the audience. I found that kind of...icky, buuuut whatever, I'm sure if I was a hardcore Pink fan, I would be like, "yes, please drip your sweat/water on me". She did several covers, one of which was Queen. You can't ever go wrong with Queen can you? She also sang "I Touch Myself" while writhing around on a couch with all these arms coming out of nowhere rubbing all over her. That part was a little too Madonna/Like a Virgin esque for me.

The Ting Tings opened up for her. For some reason I thought this band consisted of two girls, but it is in fact a guy and a girl. I *think* I like them. I found the girl to be extremely screechy in some songs, to the point where I thought I was going to freak out because it just wouldn't stop, but then other songs made me want to buy the cd. So we'll see. "That's not my name, that's not my name, that'snot my...name". That's one of those songs that is extremely irritating, yet somehow it is still on my IPOD. Anyway, they are British, and I generally enjoy all things British.

We had pretty good seats, but as you can see from my pictures below, we weren't overly close. Also, my camera doesn't do well with the whole "zoom" thing. I have to be incredibly still to get a non blurry picture. Someone can exhale loudly beside me and it will pretty much ruin things.

There was this couple in front of us that were drunk out of their faces. The guy had his hat on sideways and his pants basically around his ankles, and he kept yelling out "PINK ROCKS!", which made my brain go: does not compute. It was kind of hilarious. He kept turning around and saying stuff, and everyone had the same look of, I have no idea what you just said, on their face. It may as well have been Finnish it sounded so foreign. There were actually three people in the drunken group, but one of them was a blond girl/third wheel who was not nearly as drunk. She probably wanted to be though. At one point, Pink was singing a slow song, with a really lovely piano melody to go along with it, and the blond girl was making a video. Then in the middle of her video, her drunken friend randomly sticks her face in front of the camera and just yells, "bajdklfjjkjkjjjdfakdjfdjfkdjf". hahaha, way to ruin the video! It was probably her friends favourite song, which she was clearly trying to preserve the memory of, and it is now tainted by a drunken close up shot of her friend screaming. Video bomb! It was funny because it wasn't my video.

I am getting wayyyy to elderly to be going to concerts on weeknights. How sad is that? I didn't get home until 2am, and now I am basically useless. Need.more.coffee. The train ride home was unpleasant as I had to stand the entire time, and try not to awkwardly stare at people. You know when a train is so full, and you are just kind of like, where exactly do I look? I opted for the ground. Ugh, crowded trains.

All in all, it was fun night! I need more concerts in my life.

Crappy concert photos (in some you can actually make out that it's Pink):

On Concerts

So my little cousins recently went to go see the Jonas Brothers, OH MY GOD THE JONAS BROTHERS!!!! Cue screaming!!! I know I'm getting old when I look at those boys and I just think, "why?". First concerts are always so amazing. Mine was.

My first concert was...dum dum dum...Hanson. And aren't the Jonas Brothers just like a less good version of Hanson? Seriously now. Anyway, it was me and four of my friends at the concert. We waited in line at Ticketmaster, strategically getting our wristbands to ensure that we got closest to the front. We bought an extra ticket for my cousin so she could drive us there (and I didn't even ask her until later...and the conversation went like this: me- "soooo I hope you are free on this day because you are driving me and my friends to go see Hanson! We bought you a ticket! her-"Oh god. Well, okay I guess.". She was thrilled people, thrilled. My friends and I made a huge sign, like so huge, I'm talking a good twenty feet long, and I believe it said something like, "We love you Hanson" and it had all of our names on it. It was ridiculous, not only because of it's length, but who the shit wants to hold that up during a concert? We needed like an entire row of people to be holding it at all times. It quickly went in the garbage.

Anyway, we were in the very last row before the lawn seats began and holy lord we were excited. We loved Hanson so much. All of our rooms were covered with Hanson pullouts from Big Bop and Bopper or whatever the hell those magazines were called. You know the ones. There was no need for wallpaper, or paint really, because we had Taylor Hanson's face covering ENTIRE walls of our bedrooms.

Anyway, we drove up to the venue and as soon as we all saw it we started shrieking. My cousin was like, "ummm girls, could you not do that while I'm driving?". So we quietly shrieked until we parked. It was madness I tell you, madness. Screaming teenage girls everywhere! As soon as the first song started, me and one of my friends booted it down as close to the stage as we could get. We rocked out to "Where's the Love" in the 100 section before we were chased away by security guards. Back in our seats, my cousin had a look on her face that suggested this would never be happening again. Ever.

We stayed in our seats for the remainder of the concert, screaming like banshees whenever Taylor's face came up on the screen. At one point the mom in front us turned around and was like, "Ummm, can you not scream so loud, you are hurting my daughter's ears!". Being the considerate teenagers that we were, we continued to scream. It was Hanson ya'll.

At one point, a girl passed out from too much excitement or something, and my cousin, who is a nurse had to rush to her aid. It was exciting times, let me tell ya.

Oh our walk back to the car, Hanson came out on their balcony, and started waving to the fans. We were on top of a bridge at the time, and I'm honestly surprised one of us didn't jump off the bridge and swim towards the hotel room. It wouldn't have been shocking. We drove away from the venue blaring Hanson's christmas album, and I swear to God that was one of the best days of my life. I still break out the Hanson album every now and them, because you know, memories. That and their later music is kind of catchy. Seriously.



Ummm how cute were they? Ermm, I mean, how cute were two of them? Mmmmmmbop.

Weekend of Fun

Last weekend was great. I know, it's Thursday, and I am only now writing about the weekend...but I try. Lord knows where the week goes.

Reason Number One the Weekend Was Great:



I do love Jack Johnson. I first discovered him approximately in....2005, whilst I was in Europe, and I have loved him ever since. Jack has the kind of music that just flows, flows, flows through you body, and gives you a nice, relaxed, mellow kinda feeling. It's lovely. I kind of feel that Jack Johnson's music has contributed somehow to my being very que sera sera about life. It just really mellows you out. Some of the songs are cheesy and simple, but some definitely make you ponder life. Jack Johnson's music IS summer to me. Sitting on a dock, drinking a beer, legs danging in the water. ohhhhh yeah.

Reason Number Two This Weekend Was Great:



Mason Jennings is my new music love. He was at the concert this weekend. Honestly, I didn't notice him at all while he was actually playing, mostly because I was concerned with waiting in the very long porta potty line, but he came back out to do a song with Jack later in the evening, and I thought "damn! I love this boy!". So I've since bought his album, In The Ever, and it is pretty damn great. Kinda Jack Johnsony, but a little more upbeat.

The concert was at Burls Creek Park in Oro, Ontario. It was a great place for a concert....big wide open field, lots of room to spread out blankets and chill. Finding the actual park proved to be slightly difficult, and what was supposed to be a 10 minute drive, turned into an hour drive. Damn you google maps!! Oro is quite possibly the most hilly city I have ever encountered. My new car was like 'ummm where the hellllll are we going?" She was having quite the time chug chug chugging up and down the GRAVEL road google maps had us travelling on. Turn left on Line 8 my ass!

Some of these hills were so steep, you would get to the top and be like "ummmm where did the road go?" Redonk. Even more redonk since we ended up having to go ALL THE WAY back the way we came, up and down those same roads. Initially when we were going the wrong way, (LINE 8 does not lead to Burls Creek Park if anybody was wondering), we ended up on a dead end road. A family was there taking a midday walk. I pulled up and was like "excuse me, but are we near Burls Creek Park?". They all looked completely confused, which is never a good sign, and then the dad was like "ummm you are nowhere near it, it's about 20km down this same road you just came up, then you have to get on the highway, quickly get off the highway, drive across the bridge, and yada yada". Then the teenage son piped up, and was like "damn, you are almost in Moonstone now!". Then they all laughed. So I turned around, and went back the way we came. Funnily enough, approximately 20 other people must have gotten their directions from google maps, because at some point during our trip back down Line 8, a convoy of Jack Johnson fans was driving down the road. People were stopping their cars, yelling out the window "where's Jack???" It was quite ridiculous. Kinda fun though.

When we left the concert and were heading back to the parking lot, we all got the feeling that it was going to take us a little while to leave. TWO AND A HALF HOURS later, we got out of the parking lot. Seriously. They had us trapped in there like cattle. We played many a game, some of which included "would you rather" and the ever popular "movies...fruits...food that start with a certain letter". It was the longest wait in a parking lot ever! If you ever go to a concert at Burls Creek...don't drive!

All in all, it was a pretty great weekend. It also involved zip lining and tree trekking, but that is another post for another day.

Spicing Up My Life

During the last little while, it has become a theory of mine that almost everyone has a deep down secret love of the Spice Girls. Regardless of whether or not she cares to admit it, every girl between the ages of 12-30 has pondered which Spice they would be if they were in the group.
The Spice Girls back together? I was suspicious from the beginning. At the wise old age of 24, I could now see that the whole group just screamed of merchandising. I called bull on the whole Spice Girls machine. I saw through this scam, and was slightly offended by it. They had their run, and it was all well and good back when I was 14, but now, it just seemed a little old. A little desperate almost.

“You’re going to see the Spice Girls….are you joking?”

Okay, so five months later, there I was buying tickets to the whole charade. I was still skeptical and slightly cynical about the whole thing, but the 14 year old in me practically begged and bullied me into buying tickets, so I did. As the concert crept closer, I will admit, I started to get a little excited. It was a long time coming though. 10 years later, and I finally was going to see the Spice Girls live. They hadn’t seemed to change much. Or perhaps they had changed, but for the purposes of making some money, they pretended they hadn’t. Whatever the case, it worked.
Whenever I told people of my big adventure to come, I could detect a sense of mocking in their responses. “Yes, I am going to see them, and it is going to be their last show ever. It’s going to be great!!” I would say, secretly thinking, oh lord, the 90 dollars I spent on that ticket could be put too much better use. Food perhaps. Bills. Boring adult things.

“Okay...right. Have fun then!” Same response every time.

Underneath everyone’s I’m too cool for that exterior, I suspected they were all secretly jealous. They just couldn’t get past the, been there, done that line of thinking.

Back during the true reign of the Spice Girls, it didn’t take long for Spice Fever to hit me and my friends. So what, we thought, if their lyrics were simple, their clothes skanky, and their declarations of “Girl Power!” trite. We were 14 and we ate it up. They didn’t need to be great singers; which they by no means were (or are); they were relatable…and fun. We soon developed a weekly routine of watching Spice World, and we began to refer to each other as our assigned Spices. I was Sporty; less because I had any athletic ability, and more because I had long brown hair, and owned ADIDAS tearaways. I, and my counterparts, Ginger, Posh, Baby and Scary, otherwise known as Lauren, Tiffany, Leah and Sara, knew all the words to every Spice Girls song, as well as the accompanying dance. We even entered a Spice Girls look-alike contest at the mall. We didn’t win. The summer of Spice was one of my best ones yet, and looking back on it, I think it would be pretty hard to top. So there I was, 10 years later, going to what may be the last Spice Girls concert ever.

I suppose one could understand why I felt slightly nostalgic, yet conflicted about the whole thing. A little bit like I was compelled to let the 14 year old me go to this concert.
And besides, maybe “Girl Power” is not so trite. In the Spicy sense of the word, I got to thinking what it might actually mean. It is about friendship, it’s about love, about support and mostly it is just about having fun. It doesn’t need to go any deeper than that. Perhaps the Spice Girls were never meant to be a feminist movement. It was more of a get up, dance and be with your friend’s movement. A celebrate life movement. And that summer when we were 14, we embodied that.

So there I was at the concert with one of my best friends (who oddly enough was not one of my aforementioned dance partners of yesteryear). The cynical 24 year old part of me was still there when we got to the concert. She was there all the way through the snowstorm we drove through to see the concert, and she was there when the hour spent preceding the Spice Girls entrance was spent being inundated with messages to check out our merchandise stand! Buy a t-shirt…they are only 50 bucks. Buy a book, buy a button, buy a headband, and so on and so forth. I stood there thinking, aha! I knew it…they had this whole reunion thing planned from the get go! The t-shirts were probably made back in 1998. They would let themselves fade into obscurity, only to one day come rushing back with their cries of “girl power!”, and rake in millions. They would charge exorbitant prices for their merchandise, and pimp out their solo careers. Mmmmhmm, I thought, sucked in again.

But then they rose from the stage, starting to sing “Spice Up Your Life”. The excitement bubbled up in me. The 14 year old in me told the 24 year old in me to shut the hell up, remember what Girl Power means, dance, sing, and let her enjoy this. So I did.

The Spices put on an excellent last show, full of energy, colour, and nostalgia. They acquired a whole new generation of fans, and they assured their old ones that girl power will live on long after the last chords of “Spice Up Your Life” have ended.

Let’s face it: I’m not going to lie. If in another 10 years they decide to tour again, I’m totally there. If there is one thing I’ve learned through my journey with the Spice Girls, it’s to stop thinking so much, and just have fun. And that’s my 24 year old self saying that.