The Triumvirate Of Gratis Elation
Got our free tickets to the first game of the Memorial Cup yesterday. The baby-sitter’s been arranged and my 54*40 t-shirt dug out of mothballs. Looks like we’re ready to go. So we’re getting a free hockey game, lower bowl no less, and a free concert with 54*40 and the recently re-formed Odds all this Friday. Definitely makes the week easier to take knowing this particular light is at the end of the tunnel, not that this week has proven to be particularly hard to begin with.
I already booked Friday off so I can be rested.
I’m hoping we can get some pretty good positioning for the concert. It’s probably a bit much to hope we’ll get as good a spot as Kim and I had the last time I saw 54*40 (also for free care of my work) at the Plaza Of Nations - we were front row centre. It was awesome, crowd surfers were floating above us, the band like a metre away, I think I even got hit with band sweat. Okay, I can probably do without that last one.
Last night I got out my old 54*40 and Odds CDs, I hadn’t converted many of them to mp3 but the process is underway. Since I only had a handful of 54*40 tracks and only one Odds track on mp3 I had kinda forgotten how many awesome songs both bands have.
For 54*40 it’s easy to remember concert hits like Lies To Me, Love You All, and Ocean Pearl. And thanks to my road trip videos I’ll never forget Crossing A Canyon which is another awesome track - actually the rule with 54*40 is the songs are okay canned but amazing live, with this one particular song I think you can experience it’s entire awesomeness canned. And of course Hootie wouldn’t let us forget I Go Blind. But tracks like Since When, which itself is great, easily fade in one’s memory - it’s for the best I suppose since it allows you to re-discover them later.
And with Odds I think everyone remembers Eat My Brain but easily forgotten but totally wonderful are tracks like Radios Of Heaven and Oh Sorrow, Oh Shame.
This is going to be freaking sweet.
It’s been a good year for concerts for me already with my row 7 on the floor experience with Jon at BNL in February. I was looking through the pictures and videos I took at the show, I should post them at some point so people can get a sense for how awesome being that close can be. As Jon once said, “I can feel the jealousy growing within you…” (that prick still has yet to lend me his Transformers DVDs)
Oh and I was poking around wikipedia today and discovered that apparently Hootie & The Blowfish have a contract to perform each New Year’s in Las Vegas…hmmm…I’m not saying I could pull off (read:afford) both that and Orlando but if for some reason Orlando fell through I can just say screw you all and take off to Vegas at the end of the year…it’s good to have contingency plans. They’re also going to be performing in Red Deer (RED DEER?!) on July 19th…and Las Vegas on June 9th as well…Anaheim July 28th…San Diego the 29th…I wonder what PSB is up to…
