Saturday, 16 February 2013

A Concert, a Critter and a Beer or Two


This is not good, it was two weeks ago since I posted anything and one of two things will happen. Either there will be bugger all because I can't remember anything or it will blow out into a exorbitant number of words. Lets see how we go.

So I new Muse were coming to Vancouver on the 6th of Feb  when I got to Canada but all of the GA tickets had already sold out so I had kinda written them off. Then on Monday a person posted to the choir facebook page that she had a couple of spare tickets and was happy to exchange them for pieces of paper that are commonly used for purchasing goods and services here. Keen as, I said, and so I went to my first concert in Vancouver. It was only a 20min skytrain ride to the stadium Chinatown station ($2.10), $85 for the ticket and $40 for the obligatory gig shirt. This is one of the reasons I came to a big city, so that international artists only cost me $130 instead of the $500 and upwards I used to spend getting to Auckland and back.

The concert itself was pretty sweet. Miranda (the person I bought the ticket off) sold the other one on Craigslist to a really nice guy. We all had to enter the arena together (some stupid eticket system) so we went for a beer with him and his friends. Got yarning and ended up missing the opening act but I wasn't too fussed. Muse was good but I think the crowd was pretty confuzzeled by the eclectic mix of genres they play now. I didn't even know that they released a new album in October that is apparently even more electronic than The Resistance. The crowd didn't really know whether to mosh out or cut shapes so there wasn't much movement which was OK because the stage show was awesome, with lasers, lights and a set of concentric screens that could be lowered and raised separately to make a fort over the entire stage (obscuring the band from view). They played a couple of classics like Plug in Baby, Hysteria and Stockholm Syndrome (which I laughed all the way through as I recounted the hermit challenge where I listened to it for an hour on repeat). Afterwards we went for a debriefing beer where we met up with the guy that bought the other ticket again and I stayed up well past my bed time.

On Thursday we had a tenor sectional for the choir. The place we went to was close to the waterfront so when I got there early I went for a wander around all the lah di dah yachts around. Then I found something that I didn't expect to find in a dock, a Badger! I dunno what the hell he was doing, he was probably pretty confused as he was out on the maze of floating platforms that led to all of the moored yachts. He finally found his way out of it though and he walked under the platform I was standing on so I got a pretty good bead on him. He's so big! Why the hell does he live underground? What a guy!

I was pretty guted by the end of the week that I hadn't received my credit card yet (white people problems) so I couldn't go on my long awaited spending spree.

On Sunday I went to check out Granville Island with meetup person named Sabrina and a friend of hers that I met a few weeks ago.


As and aside: I did NOT know that there was a Evil Dead musical! Hopefully get a chance to check that out some time! I had been told Granville Island was an interesting place because it used to be a fully industrial area and has been converted into a vibrant art district with a massive market in the middle. Its funny because there is still a cement factory on the island somewhere in amongst all of the hipsters. After wandering around the market for a while we went to have a beer at the Granville Island Brewery. It was pretty nice beer but nothing to write home about.


Monday was a public holiday. It is called family day and was the first one for BC although a couple of other Provinces have had it for a while. Someone told me that they started to introduce in the coldest Provinces to reduce the suicide rate. I have not checked the references on that. Anyway, the reason for telling you it was a public holiday on Monday was because I was determined not to waste the evening. For some reason part of me always wants to have a few drinks and stay out late on a Sunday when there is a public holiday the next day for novelty factor so I asked around my small group of acquaintances if anyone was keen for drinks. I found someone that was going to a bar with some friends but quite late so I was sceptical if anything would be happening. I got into town at about 10:30pm and found that there was still plenty of people around. I guess I'm not the only one that enjoys making the most of a Monday off. Unfortunately the bar had an awful DJ that kept telling the crowd to put their hands up. In the end I decided that it was just easier to put them up and leave them there. A few people gave me some weird looks but I just asked them "why haven't you got your hands up? He hasn't told us we can put them down yet" His only 2 DJ skills consisted of scratching really badly (I think even a double amputee snake could do a better job) and yelling "YEAH" into the mic (seemingly as a celebration of his ability to fade a new song in over the last one without getting the beats lined up at all). I was not amused or impressed.


I didn't drink too much so Monday was not a writeoff but I didn't do much, just a run to the supermarket. I still hate not having a car.

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