Someone pointed out to me a few days ago that my kicker says "Musings regarding sport and life by a bored student who cannot come up with good names for his blogs". They emphasised the fact that "life" was missing.
Short of saying "SPORT IS LIIIIFE", then heading off to the gym, then playing another 3 hours of full-contact roller hockey (if you ever find a group of guys who have the ability to put up boards on a traffic-closed road in 5 minutes, get your ass down there with rollerblades, a stick, a helmet, and other padding, because contact roller hockey is out-of-this-world fun), coming home, drinking Gatorade and feeling good about myself, I elected to actually write a post about how life's been going lately.
You happy now? I'm soft.
Anyway - Bluesfest was in Ottawa over the past week or so, and let me tell you, spectacular lineup this year. I've been to some awesome concerts in my day, but (among others) last Thursday I was at The Tragically Hip* (goood Kingston baaand - Don Cherry voice), and tonight I saw Great Big Sea.
The Tragically Hip (everytime I say hip, I start to type HUP - bloody Dutch - no wonder I like them though... full of promise but they crash out in the quarters, just like my belovéd England) was, hands down, the best concert I've ever been to. And I'm not saying that because I caught one of Gord Downie's 50 hankies, or one of Johnny Fay's two drumsticks (damn skippy). They're an amazing band to begin with, but on stage - unrivaled. Energetic, lively, and they're spontaneous enough to improv a little in their songs, but not enough to make the song lose its magic. Hopefully some people have been to one of those concerts where the band improvs so much it ruins their hits - purely so that you know what I'm talking about. Gord Downie's stage performance is second-to-none. The man is all over the place, he truly does put on a show, and the rest of the band backs him up beautifully, The Tragically Hip are a cogent performing machine - love it.
Great Big Sea made me want to go to Newfoundland. I'm so not kidding. That was a party-and-a-half. It brought out Ottawa's Newfies, young and old, and were they ever a hoot in the crowd. My goodness, what a fun group of folks. Classy, friendly and polite - true Canadians in my eyes (even though they joined in 1949, they were more Canadian than many Torontonians or Montrealers I've bumped into). The band itself was fantastic, a lot more fun than I thought they'd be, their songs were really catchy (admittedly, I didn't know many of them), and those who know me, know I love a good shanty and a good jig when the situations present themselves. Did I ever get my fill tonight. Hooooo-ee bai (phonetic talking is phuntyms).
At any rate, if nothing else, those two concerts made me feel extremely Canadian. A great representation of East, Central and Western Canadian rock and folk music, outpourings of Canadian pride (on the tail of Canada Day, no less) from the crowds, just fantastic atmosphere at both shows. Oh, and also, I ate a Beavertail sandwich at the Great Big Sea concert. You heard it here first - the inventor of the Curly Fry Poutine has come up with the Beavertailwich™.
Not to mention I fucking love The Hip.
Hope you enjoyed the first (and potentially only) (mostly) non-sports related blog, so as to legitimize my kicker. You see, at the end of the day, it's beyond laziness (because I wrote a whole post in order to keep my kicker), it's beyond technical non-savvy (if you can't figure out Blogspot and were born after 1979, I'm worried for you). I'm just stubborn. Very, very stubborn.
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* For photos from the Tragically Hip concert, go here
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