GBS in Vancouver 10/1/04
Oct. 5th, 2004 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperAs previously promised! Didn't get around to writing this in a timely fashion, but that was the inevitable consequence of an extremely busy weekend. Here, nevertheless, is the saga of my second GBS show of this year.
The morning of Friday the 1st was a leisurely one.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solarbird didn't really want to leave until 1pm or so, and since she was going to do the driving, I didn't argue! gerimaple gave us a call to check in, and I told her what our ETD would be; we worked out our ETA up in Vancouver from that to be about 4pm or so. Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be off base--because of spending an hour crossing the border and then spending another hour trying to deal with the traffic backup on the weird alternative route onto which Mapquest directed us.
Up to the border, at least, the trip was uneventful. We stopped in Everett for gas and food, which was the first time I'd really actually paid attention to Everett--and so I was all 'gosh, there's a city here, who knew?' "I did," said Dara.
We stopped at a rest area before we made it to Canada. I mention this because of the stalls in the women's restroom being unusually short; standing up, I was taller than they were. It made me feel like I was suddenly six feet tall or something. Also, their water faucets were annoying; you had to hit the button on the things hard to get them to actually work.
Round about Bellingham or so the repeater on Dara's radio station of choice, KPLU, started giving out. So we switched over to Canadian radio, and by the time we made it to the Peach Arch border crossing we had been informed by the Surrey radio station we were listening to that 30kph is roughly 20mph, and 100kph is roughly 60mph. And speed limits were calculated with a number of factors in mind, such as local traffic, engineering of the roads, nearby land usage, etc. We were also informed by said station that if we disapproved of posted speed limits, we could always tell it to the cops.
The border wait was easily the longest one we'd ever had crossing into Canada; we were there for an hour. A notable part of that was spent with our car pretty much sitting exactly on the border between the U.S. and Canada. Dara remarked that our engine was in Canada, while our trunk was still in the States. We saw several cars go past us in the "Nexus lane", which is apparently for travelers who frequently cross the border and who are deemed "low risk". This program was also frequently mentioned over the informational radio station into which we'd tuned, but apparently not everybody was listening. A couple of young fellows stopped their car next to ours because we had our windows down, and asked what the Nexus lane was for. They were rather disappointed that they had to have a special permit to use that lane.
I think this was also the first time that I'd noticed the "Children of a Common Mother" inscription on top of the Peace Arch. Seeing it, all I could think about was what it said about a family where Britain was the mom, and Canada and the States were the children. It is a nice sentiment, though.
Anyway, it took us an hour to get up to the actual border guard. Who turned out to be in a rather surly mood, which was a bit surprising; all previous crossings we've had going up to Vancouver involved friendlier guards. Heck, I still fondly remember the one guard who perkily waved us on through driving up there in 2001, when we announced we were going to see a Great Big Sea show. But given that it was 4pm on a Friday afternoon when we were crossing, and three of the six lanes were closed with a bunch of cars still stretched out behind us, and that I am given to understand that this past weekend was a long weekend in Canada anyway, I suspect I would have been in a surly mood if I'd been that guy, too.
Once we got across the border, adventures in Mapquest began. Our previous jaunts into Vancouver pretty much involved driving north till we crossed the border and I-5 turned into 99, and driving north some more until "oh hey look, we're in Vancouver!" This time, however, for no reason we could discern, Mapquest wanted us to get off of 99 at Exit 2, jog over a bit, and get on another lesser highway. I expect that the theory here was to get us the allegedly best route to get onto Highway 1 to take us into Burnaby, but I think that this would be the allegedly best route at some other time than "right around rush hour on a Friday afternoon on a long weekend". Round about 4:30, when we still hadn't reached Highway 1, I got antsy about getting to Geri's house on time; Dara then handed me her cell phone and we checked in. Thankfully, it turned out that Geri had arranged to make sure we'd have a spot at the sushi place we were targeting for quite some time.
Once we actually got into Burnaby, crossing a particular bridge whose name eludes me, all the traffic pretty much vanished. And finding Geri's house was relatively quick and painless. Her neighborhood is a nice one, with wide clean streets, and at least around this time of year, a lot of trees with autumnal coloring all over the place. There were several split-level houses in the area, too, an architectural feature which caught Dara's eye but which mostly just parsed to me as 'nice-looking neighborhood that doesn't resemble other neighborhoods I've been in before'. Geri's house is a split-level as well, and in it, she has two pets: a big friendly bouncy dog named Ralph, and a black cat who turns out to have the same sweet spot atop his head that Polly has on hers.
Once we got there, Geri, her husbanddarthfrog, Dara, and I all trundled down to the nearest SkyTrain station so that we could ride that into downtown Vancouver. The layout of the train and the road beneath it interested Dara as well, and she asked Geri and Robert about that. Apparently the train station had been put in before any walking area was in place along the road leading up to it, and people heading for the station had previously walked along the grass at the side of the road. Now there's a wide paved area, more or less a sidewalk, though it doesn't really look like one.
Riding the train was pretty cool: a better ride than Seattle's monorail, and not nearly as crowded as the T in Boston. And it struck me as rather uniquely Canadian that fares on the thing are actually on the honor system; you can buy passes, which you then validate at machines at the various stations, but they check them only occasionally. I rather like that there are places in the world where the honor system seems to actually work.
And it will probably surprise absolutely no one reading this that one of the things that caught my eye on the train we rode on was a poster ad for "Inside the Actor's Studio". It had six actors and actresses' photos, and one of them was of course Russell Crowe.
Vancouver started looking familiar once we got into downtown, right around Granville (which is the road Highway 99 turns into on its way into the city); this was the part we remembered driving through on the way into Stanley Park for previous GBS shows. We all met up withelfmaid at Kitto's (which, I think, was actually the same chain I happened to notice in the food court near our hotel while we were in Boston for Worldcon) for some decent sushi and pleasant conversation, during which Robert asked Dara if she was a Great Big Sea fan. Dara replied that she wasn't in my league, but that she was indeed a GBS fan.
*beam* Gosh, I love sharing my favorite band with my spouse. ^_^
As Robert announced his intention to stop by the bookstore on the way to the show, I remembered that I wanted to see if I could find a copy of my friend Deby Fredericks' new book The Magister's Mask. As she's being published through a Canadian press, the theory was that hey, maybe I could actually FIND IT in a Canadian bookstore. We did not, however, have time for me to stop in a bookstore.
Geri, Dara, and I headed out to go on over to the Centre, while Robert went to the bookstore and Amy headed out to return to working on her project. We got a little turned around trying to find our way, going the wrong way onto Granville, but Geri quickly figured that out; en route, she told us about how the venue had been previously called the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts, but apparently the Ford company managed to screw the place over. So now it's just the Centre.
As it turned out, we actually got in there just a trifle late--apparently there was a typo on the tickets, or so Dara overheard as we headed into the place. A whole lot of people besides us were coming in at the same time we were, and yet, the first act was already on the stage. Oops. Not long after we got settled, as well, an usher came over with her flashlight to doublecheck our seats; it turned out we were sitting over one seat too far. Oops, again.
(Which contributed to the unusual flavor of this particular show--I mean, ticketed seating! And ushers! At a Great Big Sea concert!)
The lad's name was Liam Titcomb, and most of what I recollect about his act was Geri turning to me and saying, "So, how much fun do you think Alan and Séan are having corrupting him?" The thought of the boys of Great Big Sea having an impressionable youngster touring around with them does provoke a giggle or three. Hee.
Musically, Liam had a nice warm voice and played a lovely guitar, as did the young man accompanying him. Mostly, though, his style of music wasn't quite my thing. He sang moody, issue-heavy sorts of lyrics, and I like my music a bit more lighthearted and carefree. I did appreciate the chance to hear him, though.
And I did hear him quite well, though Dara and I had brought along the musician's earplugs that we'd bought after our last GBS show andfleetfootmike's recommendation. They didn't do much for me during Liam's act--possibly just because of having only two musicians on the stage, and only a couple of guitars for instruments.
Between sets, I was amused to note that the recorded music played was John Mayer. Dara has his album, and rather like Liam Titcomb, he has a warm and very distinctive sort of voice.
Jimmy Rankin is apparently formerly of the Rankin Family, a big famous eastern Canadian band from whom he split off for his own career. He had an actual backup band with him, and his performance was rather livelier than Liam Titcomb's, though I did notice that like unto the Fables and some of the stuff I have by the Irish Descendants, Jimmy's overall style seems to be just a step over from American country music. It's this similarity that reminds me of Heather Alexander's "same music, different whiskey" quote, every time I hear it.
Dara actually zonked out during Jimmy's act, since she was pretty fried from hours of driving that afternoon; her head tilted over onto my shoulder during his set. But she did come awake a bit for the part of the performance that stood out the most for me: a song called "Hand Made", in which Jimmy's lead guitarist picked up a bouzouki. This, of course, immediately snared my attention. He played a really kicking rhythm line throughout most of the song, which gave the song a unique flavor that made it stand out from practically everything else that Jimmy performed, and his solo was very, very cool as well.
The other song I mostly remember from Jimmy's Act was "Lighthouse Heart"--partly because of the lengthy intro he gave it, talking about a child in Africa he was electing to sponsor due to the ongoing AIDS pandemic over there. And partly just because I rather liked the imagery of a heart as a lighthouse and a beacon. But this, too, was one of those 'one step over from country'-flavored songs. Not bad in the slightest, just not necessarily the kind of music I'd seek out.
Jimmy gets points, though, for clever handling of drunken audience members. Some guy up in the balcony bellowed out, "I LOVE YOU!" This provoked Mr. Rankin into dryly remarking, "There's a lot of love in this room. And a lot of something else." Hee.
I did more experimentation with the earplugs during this set, too, and found that while they did work well for the most part, every so often Jimmy's voice actually clipped occasionally while I had them in--like a recording that was mixed badly. So I took them out for the remainder of his performance.
During the intermission, I'm a little afraid that we annoyed the two girls sitting on the end of our row with the amount of getting up and sitting down again we all did. We all ventured out into the lobby, Geri and I with the thought of checking out the swag table--though I bailed once I found out that they were taking only cash, and I didn't have more than a small handful of Canadian change. But this did give Geri and me an opportunity to bump into Daffy from the OKP, which was cool.
And once we all got re-settled, Dara and I got up again--because we just had to go find out if people were going to get up by the stage. Because, well, otherwise, what's the POINT of being at a GBS show? ;)
I stopped and asked another usher if she knew if we were going to be allowed up by the stage, and she sounded dubious: "They'd rather you didn't." She was not precise about who exactly "they" were, the management of the place, the band, security, or whoever. But as it turned out, once the music started the stage was rushed anyway. So we joined in with the merry throng. Dara and I wound up right smack dab between Stage Alan and Stage Séan, and that was a very fine place to be.
And, as always, the Set List:
"Chafe's Ceilidh", the instrumental off of Something Beautiful*, was the opening number only in the sense that a fragment of it was used as the music to get the B'ys on the stage before the actual opening number kicked in--"Beat the Drum". I am not sure what I think about this; it's not as smooth a transition as the "Donkey Riding" opener, but I suppose that unless you're a GBS concert vet, this is probably not a problem. But I still say "Donkey Riding" is a better opener. ;)
During both "Beat the Drum" and "Donkey Riding", I noted that while the sound at this venue was definitely better than the sound at the last one--in that I could actually look at various members of the band, watch their mouths move, and hear singing coming out--there is still a bit of a problem with being right under the line of fire. In the sound sense, that is. Right by the stage, you're between the band and the speakers, and even at this show, half the time I felt like the singing was going right over my head. I think this contributed to "Donkey Riding" sounding odd to me, again, as if the harmonies were somehow off. I think what may actually have gone on at both this show and the last one was that I was only getting part of the mix.
I did try the earplugs up close to the stage, too, but honestly didn't notice too much of a difference. They did help Dara, she reported later, which was good--because this means that she can go to more indoor GBS shows with me. I think my hearing is just less sensitive than hers is, perhaps. The parts that I really regretted not being able to hear things clearly, though, were multiple parts where Alan and Séan were heading into banter land; I had a much harder time making out what they were saying when they were just talking, as opposed to when they were singing.
Two fun things I noted about the audience around me: a girl to my left watching me getting into it, and grooving along with me in reply. Sympathetic synchronicity of GBS fans is always a delightful thing. And in front of Dara and me, there was a kid! A charming little girl with dark curly hair and a tiny GBS t-shirt, jumping around happily like all the bigger girls around her. Every so often the parental-type with her picked her up so that she could see the stage, and she kept waving frantically at Séan. I am not certain whether Séan actually saw her, but I hope he did. The kid was just too cute for words.
In between "Paddy Murphy" and "When I Am King", somebody passed a photograph up to Alan. I got a passing glimpse of it, enough to figure out that it was obviously a photo of him and a fan--I suspect that whoever passed him the picture was hoping he would sign it. He did not, but he did give it a wry look and inform the audience, "I've just been handed a very incriminating photograph of myself and a fair maiden..." Hee.
Anyone reading this who has a copy of the delightful Great Big DVD will doubtless remember the parts in the interview sections when the band is talking about how every show is distinguished by its mistakes. This time around we got a good one--I believe it was in the middle of "Scolding Wife" and Bob's accordion solo that the SOUND ON THE ACCORDION DIED. There Bob stood, squeezing away on his squeezebox, and nothing came out for several measures! It didn't last long; we had barely enough time for Bob to look surprised before his sound connection came back on. The redoubtable Danny strikes again! "Scolding Wife" also just generally makes me Happy every time they do it. I love, love, love to hear them all trading off on verses, and I knew that this song was coming when Kris popped out from behind his drums, armed with an accordion.
"I'm a Rover" had fun intro mileage as well. At least, the parts I caught were fun--this was one of the parts where the B'ys were bantering and I missed a lot of it just because I couldn't make out what the heck they were saying! But I did catch Alan's informing the ladies of the greater Vancouver area that there were rovers among them. And Séan's proceeding to elaborate upon his fondness for various groups of ladies: swimmers. Teachers. Snicker.
I was quite, quite delighted to discover that though this was my eighth Great Big Sea show, the B'ys can still surprise me. This time around, they did it by a very fine, slow and mellow rendition of "Sea of No Cares". I had absolutely no idea what was coming as Alan started in on the intro, talking about Séan and another guy working on this song (and about how he, Alan, contributed later and that of course HIS contributions were the best ;) ). Alan told us that we'd probably heard the version that got onto the album (without specifying which one)--and that we should then pretend we were in Séan's living room for this version. (That little remark went over very well with the chicks by the stage.) And then they launched in a slow, mellow intro and I racked my brains trying to figure it out. Not until they actually started on the lyrics did I realize what song it was. Well done, lads!
It was after that song and before "Helmethead" that the lovestruck persons in the audience struck again, shrieking out "We love you!" at Alan. The Doyle paused, crooked his dark eyebrows, and deadpanned, "Shouldn't we have dinner first? See a movie?"
On, then, to "Helmethead". The intro on this was giggleworthy, as Alan started working the audience to get us all prepared to do our part to yell "FARE THEE WELL!" Our immediate reply the first time we did this seemed to boggle him a little, and he remarked that it was almost mechanical (re: how on target we were). But we did not have enough fists in the air to please The Doyle, so we had to practice it a few more times before they actually started the song.
And it is still a great pleasure to actually hear Bob singing lead on a song. I like "Helmethead" as a song anyway--it's one of my favorites off Something Beautiful*, though I still haven't managed to get the right note progression for the tail end of the chorus. I can't sing it by myself yet. I can't tell if this is because it's in a difficult key for my voice or not.
As with the last show, a lot of the chicks by the stage made a big point of getting a lot quieter once Séan started in on "John Barbour". Love, love, love the "John Barbour". This is the second time, though, that Séan's changed the lyrics from what's in the recording--specifically in the "Will you marry my daughter Jane?" verse. In the recording, it goes "Will you marry my daughter Jane, and take her by the hand? Will you come and dine with me, and take charge of all my lands?" At the show, Séan sang the latter bit as "Will you marry my daughter Jane, and take charge of all my lands?" Interesting that he's done this twice now, in the "I'm a GBS geek and a music geek, so I'm interested in why they change little details like that" kind of way.
Earlier on in the show, Alan quipped to the audience that we were lucky, as they had added "all new choreography" to the show. This turned out to be a video screen above and behind the band, on which they wound up showing video clips during some of the final songs in the show. I think they're still working the bugs out of this concept, though. During "Mari-Mac" it worked pretty well--interspersing bits of the actual "Mari-Mac" video with random stills of weddings and churches. (It was, however, just a touch odd to see Séan jump up on Kris' drum riser while his own giant head was flopping sideways on the screen, with the tail end of the aforementioned actual video.)
It was an almost leisurely performance of "Mari-Mac", too. I figure if you can actually sing along with the band, they're not going fast enough. ;)
On the latter songs where they used the video screen, though, it got a trifle distracting. Dara told me that she had to actively make herself not look at the screen--and for me, while it was kind of cool to see fragments of the concert from the Great Big DVD on the screen (it caused this whole surreal 'concert on the stage, concert over the stage' thing), I think I agree with Dara that having moving images up there was too much of a distraction. Besides, who wants to look at recorded Alan, when the actual Alan is standing right there in front of you playing the hell out of his guitar?
Encore #1 started off with "Love" from Something Beautiful*, with Séan announcing that this song was for Bush and Kerry and anyone else running for leadership of the planet. Which was, I think, as political as I've ever heard a GBS show get--and hey, it does seem like an apt sort of song choice.
And I am still boggled and impressed by Bob changing instruments in the middle of "Fortune", from the fiddle to the accordion. Next time I see him do it, whether it's live or on the DVD, I need to pay closer attention and figure out exactly how much time he's got to change instruments--whether he switches off during the vocal bit in the middle. That would work.
Encore #2 started off with Alan's solo rendition of "Boston and St. John's"--but what made this unusual for me this time around was hearing people actually "shh" one another so he could be better heard. Good. There was still very soft singing going on--myself and others near the stage, unable to keep from singing along--but specifically very soft.
And Séan did a 180 on his mood for Encore #2, which was all part of the second surprise of the evening: the B'ys doing "Sloop John B". I thought this was going to be "Old Black Rum" when they started; it sounded like it was the right key, so I found myself trying to actually start singing the lyrics while the band was playing, confusedly uncertain whether this was one of those things where the audience might start singing the entire chorus unprompted. (Which would have been really cool.) But then Séan started in on the lyrics, and so we all went "Oh THAT's what he's singing!". And we got some folks singing along on the choruses, and Séan unrepentantly mangling the lyrics so he could rag on everybody else in the band as well. Hee.
We did get the actual "Old Black Rum" next, which also makes me Happy. Especially since my voice is coming back post-surgery and I can almost sing all the way through it again.
Last, but not least, a capella "Rant and Roar". Which is a very, very fine way to end any GBS show.
After the show we were all pretty much fried, voices hoarse from cheering and shouting, knees and backs a trifle shaky from jumping up and down. So we stopped in a little convenience store around the corner from the Centre, to get bottled water and milk, and then made our way back to the train station.
I looked at the ads again on the way back, and I remember thinking that I didn't see any in French, or even any with French text to go along with the English. This surprised me, but only a little. I suppose that if we had been in Montreal, there would have been a lot more French in evidence.
At our transfer point we ducked into another store so that throat lozenges could be purchased, and I got another bottle of water. I was tempted by the prospect of a Kit-Kat bar--just because, as Dara has observed, Canadian Kit-Kats are in fact better than American Kit-Kats--but decided against it just because by the time I'd gotten the water, I was mostly out of change. Oh well. ;)
On the train back into Burnaby I looked out the window, watched the lights of the city roll past, and thought about how this time around I was getting to see more of Vancouver than I had on previous visits. This pleased me--and also showed me that Vancouver is a lot bigger than I'd really realized, and definitely bigger than Seattle.
Once we got off at the station near Geri's house and started walking back, Dara asked Geri and me if Danny had any sort of fan following amongst GBS fandom, and was very pleased when we told her that yeah, actually, he does have a small number of folks who take note of him at concerts. This pleased Dara, as it reminded her a lot of the character Bridge Tech #1 who had her own little fan following during the first season of Babylon 5. Geri noted that she would in fact have cheered for Danny as he came out before GBS' set and tested all the instruments, but she had only so much throat strength to spare--and she had to keep it in reserve for the B'ys.
Once we got back to the house Geri and her husband kindly offered us tea or snacks, and Dara accepted tea, but I declined and went ahead and crashed--because I was very tired. I stayed up only long enough to borrow a cup of Internet and check email, via Dara's laptop. It is perhaps a measure of the strength of my muse that I did in fact briefly consider trying to write on my handheld (which only talks wireless, so I couldn't check email on it at Geri's house), but my muse didn't have much of a chance against a head full of Great Big Sea.
Out into slumber, therefore, I went.
I slept oddly. This is not terribly surprising given that I was in a strange bed in a strange house in a strange city, but I think most of what caused the oddity of sleeping was the lack of an air filter running in the bedroom. I've gotten used to the white noise lulling me into sleep. The one off note of the night's rest was a disturbing dream; the one fragment of it I really remember was trying to rescue a boy from a flooding basement, and bringing him up to where Alan Doyle and others were waiting. Alan watched anxiously as another woman tried to perform CPR on the kid, and he didn't make it. Erf.
Fortunately the rest of the morning went pleasantly indeed and the leftover pall of that dream didn't last long. Geri and Robert had plans for Saturday afternoon, so the morning was pretty low-key once we got up: more random conversation, mostly about Dara's liking the wood paneling in the living room and how it blended well with the stone of the fireplace. And what might be used to clean it that wouldn't make Geri ill, due to her various chemical sensitivities. We had a bit of a time getting in touch with Oliver, though. But once we did, we got our lunch plans arranged--and getting directions to where we were to meet him was incredibly easy. We just had to get back out on the thoroughfare that we'd been on to get to the train station (Lougheed) and follow that into Vancouver till it turned into Broadway and we got back to Granville. In fact, we wound up meeting Oliver not terribly far away from where we'd been the previous evening.
On the way, I kept noticing the signs at gas stations with numbers like 95.2. This looked odd to me, and I kept having to make myself remember that the signs were 95.2 cents per liter. And it was still odd once Dara told me that she'd done the math--both conversions, Canadian dollars to U.S. dollars and liters to gallons--and gotten roughly $2.80 a gallon. Apparently, gas is quite expensive in Vancouver.
We also spotted a yard sale sign on a corner that made us giggle: "Plants and crap", and a large arrow.
We met up with Oliver at a place called the Cactus Club, of which there are apparently two on Broadway in downtown Vancouver. And we at first wondered if we were at the right one, for we waited about 15 minutes before Oliver and his little boy finally showed up. But given that his little boy is in fact about three, this was not much of a shock.
The boy, whose name was Corwin, was quite cute and shy and tried to hide under the table across the aisle when he got a look at the two strangers his daddy had come to see. He was also headlong in the middle of the inevitable dinosaur phase, and had brought two dinosaur toys with him. Oliver tried to lure him out to join us by suggesting that perhaps his triceratops wanted lunch, but Corwin didn't look like he bought it. He did, however, eventually join us. And Oliver exhibited what I'm sure the parents on my Friends list will recognize: the skill of holding two conversations at once, one with the child, one with the big people.
We got caught up on six years' worth of news, and that was all good. Oliver is apparently vice president of IT at the company he works for now. Go Oliver.
The food at the restaurant was tasty; I had a salmon sandwich and fries, though some of my fries went to the cause of Making the Kid Happy, as he got a lot more interested in my fries than he was in his noodles and red sauce. I also mention the fries because the waitress brought me some tasty garlic sauce to dip them in, which prompted Dara to turn to me and say, "You are Canadian, you dip your fries in mayonnaise?!" The garlic sauce was, however, rather nummy.
All in all, a pleasant lunch, and it was good to see Oliver again.
After lunch I stopped at the Chapters on the corner just long enough to see if they had Deby's book. They did not. But I did also stop briefly in their music section, just to see if they had any Fables or Irish Descendants; they did not. But I was pleased and amused to note that they did have every single Great Big Sea album in stock. Then Dara and I met up at the car--after missing one another in the bookstore--and headed on home.
Oddly enough, the U.S. border guard was the friendliest one we've had to date coming back from trips into Vancouver. He asked us if we were sisters--presumably because we have the same last name on our passports--and even welcomed us back home. I kept saying "yes sir" at his various questions, too, which apparently boggled him; he asked me if I was in the military. I told him no, I was just from the South.
And we were only 25 minutes at the border coming home. Which felt a lot more normal. The only really odd note about coming home was that we have to take a new exit now off of I-5 to get to our new house--exit 174, now. The one that goes into Lake Forest Park.
I checked Geri's email with her instructions on how to get to her house, once we got in, and saw that she had in fact given us non-goofy directions since she'd checked Mapquest too and realized they were screwed up. This is what I get for not having read that email more closer before we left!
Next time, I'll know better. Here's to looking forward to another GBS show in Vancouver!
The morning of Friday the 1st was a leisurely one.
solarbird didn't really want to leave until 1pm or so, and since she was going to do the driving, I didn't argue! gerimaple gave us a call to check in, and I told her what our ETD would be; we worked out our ETA up in Vancouver from that to be about 4pm or so. Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be off base--because of spending an hour crossing the border and then spending another hour trying to deal with the traffic backup on the weird alternative route onto which Mapquest directed us.Up to the border, at least, the trip was uneventful. We stopped in Everett for gas and food, which was the first time I'd really actually paid attention to Everett--and so I was all 'gosh, there's a city here, who knew?' "I did," said Dara.
We stopped at a rest area before we made it to Canada. I mention this because of the stalls in the women's restroom being unusually short; standing up, I was taller than they were. It made me feel like I was suddenly six feet tall or something. Also, their water faucets were annoying; you had to hit the button on the things hard to get them to actually work.
Round about Bellingham or so the repeater on Dara's radio station of choice, KPLU, started giving out. So we switched over to Canadian radio, and by the time we made it to the Peach Arch border crossing we had been informed by the Surrey radio station we were listening to that 30kph is roughly 20mph, and 100kph is roughly 60mph. And speed limits were calculated with a number of factors in mind, such as local traffic, engineering of the roads, nearby land usage, etc. We were also informed by said station that if we disapproved of posted speed limits, we could always tell it to the cops.
The border wait was easily the longest one we'd ever had crossing into Canada; we were there for an hour. A notable part of that was spent with our car pretty much sitting exactly on the border between the U.S. and Canada. Dara remarked that our engine was in Canada, while our trunk was still in the States. We saw several cars go past us in the "Nexus lane", which is apparently for travelers who frequently cross the border and who are deemed "low risk". This program was also frequently mentioned over the informational radio station into which we'd tuned, but apparently not everybody was listening. A couple of young fellows stopped their car next to ours because we had our windows down, and asked what the Nexus lane was for. They were rather disappointed that they had to have a special permit to use that lane.
I think this was also the first time that I'd noticed the "Children of a Common Mother" inscription on top of the Peace Arch. Seeing it, all I could think about was what it said about a family where Britain was the mom, and Canada and the States were the children. It is a nice sentiment, though.
Anyway, it took us an hour to get up to the actual border guard. Who turned out to be in a rather surly mood, which was a bit surprising; all previous crossings we've had going up to Vancouver involved friendlier guards. Heck, I still fondly remember the one guard who perkily waved us on through driving up there in 2001, when we announced we were going to see a Great Big Sea show. But given that it was 4pm on a Friday afternoon when we were crossing, and three of the six lanes were closed with a bunch of cars still stretched out behind us, and that I am given to understand that this past weekend was a long weekend in Canada anyway, I suspect I would have been in a surly mood if I'd been that guy, too.
Once we got across the border, adventures in Mapquest began. Our previous jaunts into Vancouver pretty much involved driving north till we crossed the border and I-5 turned into 99, and driving north some more until "oh hey look, we're in Vancouver!" This time, however, for no reason we could discern, Mapquest wanted us to get off of 99 at Exit 2, jog over a bit, and get on another lesser highway. I expect that the theory here was to get us the allegedly best route to get onto Highway 1 to take us into Burnaby, but I think that this would be the allegedly best route at some other time than "right around rush hour on a Friday afternoon on a long weekend". Round about 4:30, when we still hadn't reached Highway 1, I got antsy about getting to Geri's house on time; Dara then handed me her cell phone and we checked in. Thankfully, it turned out that Geri had arranged to make sure we'd have a spot at the sushi place we were targeting for quite some time.
Once we actually got into Burnaby, crossing a particular bridge whose name eludes me, all the traffic pretty much vanished. And finding Geri's house was relatively quick and painless. Her neighborhood is a nice one, with wide clean streets, and at least around this time of year, a lot of trees with autumnal coloring all over the place. There were several split-level houses in the area, too, an architectural feature which caught Dara's eye but which mostly just parsed to me as 'nice-looking neighborhood that doesn't resemble other neighborhoods I've been in before'. Geri's house is a split-level as well, and in it, she has two pets: a big friendly bouncy dog named Ralph, and a black cat who turns out to have the same sweet spot atop his head that Polly has on hers.
Once we got there, Geri, her husband
darthfrog, Dara, and I all trundled down to the nearest SkyTrain station so that we could ride that into downtown Vancouver. The layout of the train and the road beneath it interested Dara as well, and she asked Geri and Robert about that. Apparently the train station had been put in before any walking area was in place along the road leading up to it, and people heading for the station had previously walked along the grass at the side of the road. Now there's a wide paved area, more or less a sidewalk, though it doesn't really look like one.Riding the train was pretty cool: a better ride than Seattle's monorail, and not nearly as crowded as the T in Boston. And it struck me as rather uniquely Canadian that fares on the thing are actually on the honor system; you can buy passes, which you then validate at machines at the various stations, but they check them only occasionally. I rather like that there are places in the world where the honor system seems to actually work.
And it will probably surprise absolutely no one reading this that one of the things that caught my eye on the train we rode on was a poster ad for "Inside the Actor's Studio". It had six actors and actresses' photos, and one of them was of course Russell Crowe.
Vancouver started looking familiar once we got into downtown, right around Granville (which is the road Highway 99 turns into on its way into the city); this was the part we remembered driving through on the way into Stanley Park for previous GBS shows. We all met up with
elfmaid at Kitto's (which, I think, was actually the same chain I happened to notice in the food court near our hotel while we were in Boston for Worldcon) for some decent sushi and pleasant conversation, during which Robert asked Dara if she was a Great Big Sea fan. Dara replied that she wasn't in my league, but that she was indeed a GBS fan.*beam* Gosh, I love sharing my favorite band with my spouse. ^_^
As Robert announced his intention to stop by the bookstore on the way to the show, I remembered that I wanted to see if I could find a copy of my friend Deby Fredericks' new book The Magister's Mask. As she's being published through a Canadian press, the theory was that hey, maybe I could actually FIND IT in a Canadian bookstore. We did not, however, have time for me to stop in a bookstore.
Geri, Dara, and I headed out to go on over to the Centre, while Robert went to the bookstore and Amy headed out to return to working on her project. We got a little turned around trying to find our way, going the wrong way onto Granville, but Geri quickly figured that out; en route, she told us about how the venue had been previously called the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts, but apparently the Ford company managed to screw the place over. So now it's just the Centre.
As it turned out, we actually got in there just a trifle late--apparently there was a typo on the tickets, or so Dara overheard as we headed into the place. A whole lot of people besides us were coming in at the same time we were, and yet, the first act was already on the stage. Oops. Not long after we got settled, as well, an usher came over with her flashlight to doublecheck our seats; it turned out we were sitting over one seat too far. Oops, again.
(Which contributed to the unusual flavor of this particular show--I mean, ticketed seating! And ushers! At a Great Big Sea concert!)
The lad's name was Liam Titcomb, and most of what I recollect about his act was Geri turning to me and saying, "So, how much fun do you think Alan and Séan are having corrupting him?" The thought of the boys of Great Big Sea having an impressionable youngster touring around with them does provoke a giggle or three. Hee.
Musically, Liam had a nice warm voice and played a lovely guitar, as did the young man accompanying him. Mostly, though, his style of music wasn't quite my thing. He sang moody, issue-heavy sorts of lyrics, and I like my music a bit more lighthearted and carefree. I did appreciate the chance to hear him, though.
And I did hear him quite well, though Dara and I had brought along the musician's earplugs that we'd bought after our last GBS show and
fleetfootmike's recommendation. They didn't do much for me during Liam's act--possibly just because of having only two musicians on the stage, and only a couple of guitars for instruments.Between sets, I was amused to note that the recorded music played was John Mayer. Dara has his album, and rather like Liam Titcomb, he has a warm and very distinctive sort of voice.
Jimmy Rankin is apparently formerly of the Rankin Family, a big famous eastern Canadian band from whom he split off for his own career. He had an actual backup band with him, and his performance was rather livelier than Liam Titcomb's, though I did notice that like unto the Fables and some of the stuff I have by the Irish Descendants, Jimmy's overall style seems to be just a step over from American country music. It's this similarity that reminds me of Heather Alexander's "same music, different whiskey" quote, every time I hear it.
Dara actually zonked out during Jimmy's act, since she was pretty fried from hours of driving that afternoon; her head tilted over onto my shoulder during his set. But she did come awake a bit for the part of the performance that stood out the most for me: a song called "Hand Made", in which Jimmy's lead guitarist picked up a bouzouki. This, of course, immediately snared my attention. He played a really kicking rhythm line throughout most of the song, which gave the song a unique flavor that made it stand out from practically everything else that Jimmy performed, and his solo was very, very cool as well.
The other song I mostly remember from Jimmy's Act was "Lighthouse Heart"--partly because of the lengthy intro he gave it, talking about a child in Africa he was electing to sponsor due to the ongoing AIDS pandemic over there. And partly just because I rather liked the imagery of a heart as a lighthouse and a beacon. But this, too, was one of those 'one step over from country'-flavored songs. Not bad in the slightest, just not necessarily the kind of music I'd seek out.
Jimmy gets points, though, for clever handling of drunken audience members. Some guy up in the balcony bellowed out, "I LOVE YOU!" This provoked Mr. Rankin into dryly remarking, "There's a lot of love in this room. And a lot of something else." Hee.
I did more experimentation with the earplugs during this set, too, and found that while they did work well for the most part, every so often Jimmy's voice actually clipped occasionally while I had them in--like a recording that was mixed badly. So I took them out for the remainder of his performance.
During the intermission, I'm a little afraid that we annoyed the two girls sitting on the end of our row with the amount of getting up and sitting down again we all did. We all ventured out into the lobby, Geri and I with the thought of checking out the swag table--though I bailed once I found out that they were taking only cash, and I didn't have more than a small handful of Canadian change. But this did give Geri and me an opportunity to bump into Daffy from the OKP, which was cool.
And once we all got re-settled, Dara and I got up again--because we just had to go find out if people were going to get up by the stage. Because, well, otherwise, what's the POINT of being at a GBS show? ;)
I stopped and asked another usher if she knew if we were going to be allowed up by the stage, and she sounded dubious: "They'd rather you didn't." She was not precise about who exactly "they" were, the management of the place, the band, security, or whoever. But as it turned out, once the music started the stage was rushed anyway. So we joined in with the merry throng. Dara and I wound up right smack dab between Stage Alan and Stage Séan, and that was a very fine place to be.
And, as always, the Set List:
- "Chafe's Ceilidh"
- "Beat the Drum"
- "Donkey Riding"
- "When I'm Up"
- "Shines Right Through Me"
- "Lukey"
- "Something Beautiful"
- "The Night Pat Murphy Died"
- "When I Am King"
- "Run Run Away"
- "General Taylor"
- "Scolding Wife"
- "Sally Ann"
- "I'm a Rover"
- "Sea of No Cares"
- "Helmethead"
- "John Barbour"
- "Consequence Free"
- "Mari-Mac"
- "Ordinary Day"
- Encore #1: "Love" / "Excursion Around the Bay" / "Fortune"
- Encore #2: "Boston and St. John's" / "Sloop John B" / "Old Black Rum" / "Rant and Roar"
"Chafe's Ceilidh", the instrumental off of Something Beautiful*, was the opening number only in the sense that a fragment of it was used as the music to get the B'ys on the stage before the actual opening number kicked in--"Beat the Drum". I am not sure what I think about this; it's not as smooth a transition as the "Donkey Riding" opener, but I suppose that unless you're a GBS concert vet, this is probably not a problem. But I still say "Donkey Riding" is a better opener. ;)
During both "Beat the Drum" and "Donkey Riding", I noted that while the sound at this venue was definitely better than the sound at the last one--in that I could actually look at various members of the band, watch their mouths move, and hear singing coming out--there is still a bit of a problem with being right under the line of fire. In the sound sense, that is. Right by the stage, you're between the band and the speakers, and even at this show, half the time I felt like the singing was going right over my head. I think this contributed to "Donkey Riding" sounding odd to me, again, as if the harmonies were somehow off. I think what may actually have gone on at both this show and the last one was that I was only getting part of the mix.
I did try the earplugs up close to the stage, too, but honestly didn't notice too much of a difference. They did help Dara, she reported later, which was good--because this means that she can go to more indoor GBS shows with me. I think my hearing is just less sensitive than hers is, perhaps. The parts that I really regretted not being able to hear things clearly, though, were multiple parts where Alan and Séan were heading into banter land; I had a much harder time making out what they were saying when they were just talking, as opposed to when they were singing.
Two fun things I noted about the audience around me: a girl to my left watching me getting into it, and grooving along with me in reply. Sympathetic synchronicity of GBS fans is always a delightful thing. And in front of Dara and me, there was a kid! A charming little girl with dark curly hair and a tiny GBS t-shirt, jumping around happily like all the bigger girls around her. Every so often the parental-type with her picked her up so that she could see the stage, and she kept waving frantically at Séan. I am not certain whether Séan actually saw her, but I hope he did. The kid was just too cute for words.
In between "Paddy Murphy" and "When I Am King", somebody passed a photograph up to Alan. I got a passing glimpse of it, enough to figure out that it was obviously a photo of him and a fan--I suspect that whoever passed him the picture was hoping he would sign it. He did not, but he did give it a wry look and inform the audience, "I've just been handed a very incriminating photograph of myself and a fair maiden..." Hee.
Anyone reading this who has a copy of the delightful Great Big DVD will doubtless remember the parts in the interview sections when the band is talking about how every show is distinguished by its mistakes. This time around we got a good one--I believe it was in the middle of "Scolding Wife" and Bob's accordion solo that the SOUND ON THE ACCORDION DIED. There Bob stood, squeezing away on his squeezebox, and nothing came out for several measures! It didn't last long; we had barely enough time for Bob to look surprised before his sound connection came back on. The redoubtable Danny strikes again! "Scolding Wife" also just generally makes me Happy every time they do it. I love, love, love to hear them all trading off on verses, and I knew that this song was coming when Kris popped out from behind his drums, armed with an accordion.
"I'm a Rover" had fun intro mileage as well. At least, the parts I caught were fun--this was one of the parts where the B'ys were bantering and I missed a lot of it just because I couldn't make out what the heck they were saying! But I did catch Alan's informing the ladies of the greater Vancouver area that there were rovers among them. And Séan's proceeding to elaborate upon his fondness for various groups of ladies: swimmers. Teachers. Snicker.
I was quite, quite delighted to discover that though this was my eighth Great Big Sea show, the B'ys can still surprise me. This time around, they did it by a very fine, slow and mellow rendition of "Sea of No Cares". I had absolutely no idea what was coming as Alan started in on the intro, talking about Séan and another guy working on this song (and about how he, Alan, contributed later and that of course HIS contributions were the best ;) ). Alan told us that we'd probably heard the version that got onto the album (without specifying which one)--and that we should then pretend we were in Séan's living room for this version. (That little remark went over very well with the chicks by the stage.) And then they launched in a slow, mellow intro and I racked my brains trying to figure it out. Not until they actually started on the lyrics did I realize what song it was. Well done, lads!
It was after that song and before "Helmethead" that the lovestruck persons in the audience struck again, shrieking out "We love you!" at Alan. The Doyle paused, crooked his dark eyebrows, and deadpanned, "Shouldn't we have dinner first? See a movie?"
On, then, to "Helmethead". The intro on this was giggleworthy, as Alan started working the audience to get us all prepared to do our part to yell "FARE THEE WELL!" Our immediate reply the first time we did this seemed to boggle him a little, and he remarked that it was almost mechanical (re: how on target we were). But we did not have enough fists in the air to please The Doyle, so we had to practice it a few more times before they actually started the song.
And it is still a great pleasure to actually hear Bob singing lead on a song. I like "Helmethead" as a song anyway--it's one of my favorites off Something Beautiful*, though I still haven't managed to get the right note progression for the tail end of the chorus. I can't sing it by myself yet. I can't tell if this is because it's in a difficult key for my voice or not.
As with the last show, a lot of the chicks by the stage made a big point of getting a lot quieter once Séan started in on "John Barbour". Love, love, love the "John Barbour". This is the second time, though, that Séan's changed the lyrics from what's in the recording--specifically in the "Will you marry my daughter Jane?" verse. In the recording, it goes "Will you marry my daughter Jane, and take her by the hand? Will you come and dine with me, and take charge of all my lands?" At the show, Séan sang the latter bit as "Will you marry my daughter Jane, and take charge of all my lands?" Interesting that he's done this twice now, in the "I'm a GBS geek and a music geek, so I'm interested in why they change little details like that" kind of way.
Earlier on in the show, Alan quipped to the audience that we were lucky, as they had added "all new choreography" to the show. This turned out to be a video screen above and behind the band, on which they wound up showing video clips during some of the final songs in the show. I think they're still working the bugs out of this concept, though. During "Mari-Mac" it worked pretty well--interspersing bits of the actual "Mari-Mac" video with random stills of weddings and churches. (It was, however, just a touch odd to see Séan jump up on Kris' drum riser while his own giant head was flopping sideways on the screen, with the tail end of the aforementioned actual video.)
It was an almost leisurely performance of "Mari-Mac", too. I figure if you can actually sing along with the band, they're not going fast enough. ;)
On the latter songs where they used the video screen, though, it got a trifle distracting. Dara told me that she had to actively make herself not look at the screen--and for me, while it was kind of cool to see fragments of the concert from the Great Big DVD on the screen (it caused this whole surreal 'concert on the stage, concert over the stage' thing), I think I agree with Dara that having moving images up there was too much of a distraction. Besides, who wants to look at recorded Alan, when the actual Alan is standing right there in front of you playing the hell out of his guitar?
Encore #1 started off with "Love" from Something Beautiful*, with Séan announcing that this song was for Bush and Kerry and anyone else running for leadership of the planet. Which was, I think, as political as I've ever heard a GBS show get--and hey, it does seem like an apt sort of song choice.
And I am still boggled and impressed by Bob changing instruments in the middle of "Fortune", from the fiddle to the accordion. Next time I see him do it, whether it's live or on the DVD, I need to pay closer attention and figure out exactly how much time he's got to change instruments--whether he switches off during the vocal bit in the middle. That would work.
Encore #2 started off with Alan's solo rendition of "Boston and St. John's"--but what made this unusual for me this time around was hearing people actually "shh" one another so he could be better heard. Good. There was still very soft singing going on--myself and others near the stage, unable to keep from singing along--but specifically very soft.
And Séan did a 180 on his mood for Encore #2, which was all part of the second surprise of the evening: the B'ys doing "Sloop John B". I thought this was going to be "Old Black Rum" when they started; it sounded like it was the right key, so I found myself trying to actually start singing the lyrics while the band was playing, confusedly uncertain whether this was one of those things where the audience might start singing the entire chorus unprompted. (Which would have been really cool.) But then Séan started in on the lyrics, and so we all went "Oh THAT's what he's singing!". And we got some folks singing along on the choruses, and Séan unrepentantly mangling the lyrics so he could rag on everybody else in the band as well. Hee.
We did get the actual "Old Black Rum" next, which also makes me Happy. Especially since my voice is coming back post-surgery and I can almost sing all the way through it again.
Last, but not least, a capella "Rant and Roar". Which is a very, very fine way to end any GBS show.
After the show we were all pretty much fried, voices hoarse from cheering and shouting, knees and backs a trifle shaky from jumping up and down. So we stopped in a little convenience store around the corner from the Centre, to get bottled water and milk, and then made our way back to the train station.
I looked at the ads again on the way back, and I remember thinking that I didn't see any in French, or even any with French text to go along with the English. This surprised me, but only a little. I suppose that if we had been in Montreal, there would have been a lot more French in evidence.
At our transfer point we ducked into another store so that throat lozenges could be purchased, and I got another bottle of water. I was tempted by the prospect of a Kit-Kat bar--just because, as Dara has observed, Canadian Kit-Kats are in fact better than American Kit-Kats--but decided against it just because by the time I'd gotten the water, I was mostly out of change. Oh well. ;)
On the train back into Burnaby I looked out the window, watched the lights of the city roll past, and thought about how this time around I was getting to see more of Vancouver than I had on previous visits. This pleased me--and also showed me that Vancouver is a lot bigger than I'd really realized, and definitely bigger than Seattle.
Once we got off at the station near Geri's house and started walking back, Dara asked Geri and me if Danny had any sort of fan following amongst GBS fandom, and was very pleased when we told her that yeah, actually, he does have a small number of folks who take note of him at concerts. This pleased Dara, as it reminded her a lot of the character Bridge Tech #1 who had her own little fan following during the first season of Babylon 5. Geri noted that she would in fact have cheered for Danny as he came out before GBS' set and tested all the instruments, but she had only so much throat strength to spare--and she had to keep it in reserve for the B'ys.
Once we got back to the house Geri and her husband kindly offered us tea or snacks, and Dara accepted tea, but I declined and went ahead and crashed--because I was very tired. I stayed up only long enough to borrow a cup of Internet and check email, via Dara's laptop. It is perhaps a measure of the strength of my muse that I did in fact briefly consider trying to write on my handheld (which only talks wireless, so I couldn't check email on it at Geri's house), but my muse didn't have much of a chance against a head full of Great Big Sea.
Out into slumber, therefore, I went.
I slept oddly. This is not terribly surprising given that I was in a strange bed in a strange house in a strange city, but I think most of what caused the oddity of sleeping was the lack of an air filter running in the bedroom. I've gotten used to the white noise lulling me into sleep. The one off note of the night's rest was a disturbing dream; the one fragment of it I really remember was trying to rescue a boy from a flooding basement, and bringing him up to where Alan Doyle and others were waiting. Alan watched anxiously as another woman tried to perform CPR on the kid, and he didn't make it. Erf.
Fortunately the rest of the morning went pleasantly indeed and the leftover pall of that dream didn't last long. Geri and Robert had plans for Saturday afternoon, so the morning was pretty low-key once we got up: more random conversation, mostly about Dara's liking the wood paneling in the living room and how it blended well with the stone of the fireplace. And what might be used to clean it that wouldn't make Geri ill, due to her various chemical sensitivities. We had a bit of a time getting in touch with Oliver, though. But once we did, we got our lunch plans arranged--and getting directions to where we were to meet him was incredibly easy. We just had to get back out on the thoroughfare that we'd been on to get to the train station (Lougheed) and follow that into Vancouver till it turned into Broadway and we got back to Granville. In fact, we wound up meeting Oliver not terribly far away from where we'd been the previous evening.
On the way, I kept noticing the signs at gas stations with numbers like 95.2. This looked odd to me, and I kept having to make myself remember that the signs were 95.2 cents per liter. And it was still odd once Dara told me that she'd done the math--both conversions, Canadian dollars to U.S. dollars and liters to gallons--and gotten roughly $2.80 a gallon. Apparently, gas is quite expensive in Vancouver.
We also spotted a yard sale sign on a corner that made us giggle: "Plants and crap", and a large arrow.
We met up with Oliver at a place called the Cactus Club, of which there are apparently two on Broadway in downtown Vancouver. And we at first wondered if we were at the right one, for we waited about 15 minutes before Oliver and his little boy finally showed up. But given that his little boy is in fact about three, this was not much of a shock.
The boy, whose name was Corwin, was quite cute and shy and tried to hide under the table across the aisle when he got a look at the two strangers his daddy had come to see. He was also headlong in the middle of the inevitable dinosaur phase, and had brought two dinosaur toys with him. Oliver tried to lure him out to join us by suggesting that perhaps his triceratops wanted lunch, but Corwin didn't look like he bought it. He did, however, eventually join us. And Oliver exhibited what I'm sure the parents on my Friends list will recognize: the skill of holding two conversations at once, one with the child, one with the big people.
We got caught up on six years' worth of news, and that was all good. Oliver is apparently vice president of IT at the company he works for now. Go Oliver.
The food at the restaurant was tasty; I had a salmon sandwich and fries, though some of my fries went to the cause of Making the Kid Happy, as he got a lot more interested in my fries than he was in his noodles and red sauce. I also mention the fries because the waitress brought me some tasty garlic sauce to dip them in, which prompted Dara to turn to me and say, "You are Canadian, you dip your fries in mayonnaise?!" The garlic sauce was, however, rather nummy.
All in all, a pleasant lunch, and it was good to see Oliver again.
After lunch I stopped at the Chapters on the corner just long enough to see if they had Deby's book. They did not. But I did also stop briefly in their music section, just to see if they had any Fables or Irish Descendants; they did not. But I was pleased and amused to note that they did have every single Great Big Sea album in stock. Then Dara and I met up at the car--after missing one another in the bookstore--and headed on home.
Oddly enough, the U.S. border guard was the friendliest one we've had to date coming back from trips into Vancouver. He asked us if we were sisters--presumably because we have the same last name on our passports--and even welcomed us back home. I kept saying "yes sir" at his various questions, too, which apparently boggled him; he asked me if I was in the military. I told him no, I was just from the South.
And we were only 25 minutes at the border coming home. Which felt a lot more normal. The only really odd note about coming home was that we have to take a new exit now off of I-5 to get to our new house--exit 174, now. The one that goes into Lake Forest Park.
I checked Geri's email with her instructions on how to get to her house, once we got in, and saw that she had in fact given us non-goofy directions since she'd checked Mapquest too and realized they were screwed up. This is what I get for not having read that email more closer before we left!
Next time, I'll know better. Here's to looking forward to another GBS show in Vancouver!
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 10:41 pm (UTC)In Montreal, not only would there have been more evidence of French, there would have been no evidence of English :) If there was, it would be small print. There are signage laws which say that French must be the dominant language on all signs and, if there is more than one language on the sign, the French lettering must be at least twice the size as the other languages. It wreaked havoc in Chinatown when it first came out.
And gas is that price everywhere in Canada, love. Still cheaper than bottled water, and WAY cheaper than prices in Europe. I'm one of the bunch who is hoping that gas prices continue to rise, which in turn would make people more likely to buy fuel-efficient cars rather than SUVS and Hummers. There's a new truck coming out which is so big it gets 13 miles to the gallon (I've only seen American ads for it) - who on Earth needs a vehicle that huge?
no subject
Date: 2004-10-05 10:55 pm (UTC)Yip, I can see the signage issue definitely causing problems in Chinatown!
And noted about the gas prices! I'm with you--I can't imagine why people want trucks that big, and now that I'm going to be working again I'm once again going to make a point of taking the bus to work as much as possible just to keep my car off the road. Fortunately, I'll be able to get a free bus pass.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 03:48 pm (UTC)Jimmy went solo after the band split. Sister Raylene left in 1998 to spend more time with her young family. The rest continued for a while longer, but officially called it a day in September 1999. Brother John Morris was tragically killed in a car accident in January 2000. Jimmy's first solo album Song Dog was released in 2001
The Rankins are often credited with bringing East Coast traditional music to the mainstream. They were signed to Capitol/EMI Music Canada in 1992 and never looked back. You might want to check out their catalogue if the idea of Cape Breton traditional tunes (including songs sung in Gaelic), Jimmy's originals and awesome instrumentals piques your fancy.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 06:50 pm (UTC)If you have The Chieftains' compilation album Fire in the Kitchen, The Rankins song An Innis Aigh is on there.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 06:55 pm (UTC)Thanks again. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-06 10:04 pm (UTC)not by the "official" definition as I'm given to understand it. a "split-level" is a house that has no living area at the entrance. said entrance is a 10'x5' area with stairs immediately heading up and down to the living areas. the four houses on either side of mine are split levels. like so: (approximately)
_____livingspace_____ | |stairs |__entrance___| |stairs |____livingspace____mine is a more basic two-level no-basement house. like so (approx):
________livingspace________| | | |stairs | | ________livingspace________|entrancetaking into account of course, the pecuilarly vancouver tendency to have the main living spaces (bedrooms, living room, kitchen, etc) all on the 2nd floor. this goes for the split levels too. downstairs is rec rooms, laundry, dens/offices, extra bedrooms if you have more kids than you do upstairs rooms, etc.
and in it, she has two pets: a big friendly bouncy dog named Ralph
who took an immediate and uncharacteristicly submissive shining to
and a black cat named Emma :) who turns out to have the same sweet spot atop her head that Polly has
I'm sorry, did I not properly introduce the cat? *blush* BAD kitty mommy! :)
fares on the thing are actually on the honor system; you can buy passes, which you then validate at machines at the various stations, but they check them only occasionally. I rather like that there are places in the world where the honor system seems to actually work
the key word in that sentence is "seems". the transit authorities are constantly whining about fare evasion as a way to justify a massive capital expenditure on pass-checking equipment (which of course hasn't happened yet since the transit authority would have to raise fares to pay for said expenditure and they're already public enemy #1 for the number of increases in the last three years)
{fast forward through the show :}
I was tempted by the prospect of a Kit-Kat bar--just because, as Dara has observed, Canadian Kit-Kats are in fact better than American Kit-Kats--but decided against it just because by the time I'd gotten the water, I was mostly out of change.
i would have been DELIGHTED to treat you to one if i'd realised that lack of change was the problem. i overheard the conversation to be lack of interest.
the one fragment of it I really remember was trying to rescue a boy from a flooding basement, and bringing him up to where Alan Doyle and others were waiting. Alan watched anxiously as another woman tried to perform CPR on the kid, and he didn't make it. Erf.
so THAT'S why I wasn't having nightmares about my afternoon in Tsawwassen - I sent them downstairs :( my profuse apologies *hugs* i'm NOT in the habit of doing that, i swear.
We had a bit of a time getting in touch with Oliver
and the pen I lent Dara got left on the coffee table until yesterday, when the big bouncy mutt of my otherwise-fond aquaintaince swiped it, gave it a chomp, and left a big puddle of royal blue ink by the speaker closest to the stairs. *sigh* thanks for the ideas re: fireplace, though.
saw that she had in fact given us non-goofy directions since she'd checked Mapquest too and realized they were screwed up. This is what I get for not having read that email more closer before we left!
and i warned you about the gas prices too *sigh* the chevron station in blaine, WA near the truck crossing almost always gets money from me on the way home from the States for this reason.
having you around made the show that much more fun, and helped save my day post-afternoon-unpleasantness. you're welcome back anytime the b'ys are in the neighbourhood :)
Sea Of No Cares acoustic
Date: 2004-10-13 04:03 am (UTC)We also live in the Seattle area. The radio station KMTT puts out cds of bands that have played in their Mountain Music Lounge. On the On The Mountian 8 cd Alan and Sean do the acoustic version of Sea Of No Cares. It is so good. It is just a hair faster than they played it at the Centre. You can buy this cd off of the KMTT web site.
You should also check out a band called the Clumsy Lovers. They are also Canadian and do similar music to GBS. They play Seattle a lot. The next time is Dec. 10 & 11 at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard. They are a very fun band. You have to be over 21.
Re: Sea Of No Cares acoustic
Date: 2004-10-13 04:53 am (UTC)Whoa cool, glad to hear that Alan and Séan got that lovely version of the song recorded somewhere! I might have to go look into this.
Thanks for the recommendation about the Clumsy Lovers as well!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-12 07:22 pm (UTC)Thank you again for having us; we'll have to do it again next time GBS hits Vancouver. Or heck, next time we have any other reason to visit Vancouver, which is visit-worthy even when it doesn't have musically talented Newfoundlanders there!