freakpirate

I was sitting around, trying to think of something to write and couldn't really come up with anything. I didn't want to write another journal complaining about my jobs or talking about how I have nothing good to talk about. So I wasn't going to bother. Then I remembered that I went on a road trip to see The Weakerthans last weekend. So I'm going to talk about that.



I started listening to The Weakerthans back in high school. I found their CD Left and Leaving at HMV for $10. I figured even if it wasn't great I hadn't wasted a lot of money. It was $10 very well spent. I've seen them twice before the concert last weekend. Once in my first year of university and once in my second year. Sadly, I haven't been able to catch them since. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to drive out to see them last Sunday.

cirdt took the bus down from Edmonton to join us. We had to wait for Jody to get off work so we had a slice of pizza and watched Zero Punctuation. Once Jody was done work we picked her up and started driving. That's when the blizzard began. Now, living in Canada I'm not exactly a stranger to snow. It's still not a lot of fun when you're driving on a mountain highway with the shit blowing across your windshield. About ten minutes outside of Banff the snow suddenly stopped and it looked like all would be well. Unfortunately, it started up again once we got into Banff. Oh well.

We checked into the hotel and then headed out for food. We went to a pub a couple blocks from the hotel and had a great meal. I had really good fish and chips. Jody had a delicious seafood boxty. Cirdt had a mushroom sandwich. Apparently it was tasty but structurally unsound. I also had a pint of Strongbow which made me squeal in delight.

We had some time to kill before the show started so we sat around the hotel, drank a bit and watched an edited version of Ferris Bueller. Man I hate edited movies...

Finally it was show time. The Constantines opened. I'd never really listened to them before but they were quite entertaining. I'm not exactly how they all ended up wearing wigs from the audience but they did. And they wore them for pretty much the whole set. Considering how ridiculously hot the bar was, it was pretty impressive. At one point John K Samson came out to sing a song with them and ended up crowd surfing away.

And then it was time for The Weakerthans. The show itself is kind of a crazy, sweaty, rock filled blur. I can remember a handful of the songs they played but I wouldn't be able to list all of them and certainly not in the right order. However, I can tell you that they played a great set and I couldn't have been happier. They played a lot of their older songs (which I really loved) and the new songs they played were the ones I really like. I jumped around a lot when they played Aside (video above). Even though the second story wooden floor felt like it was going to buckle, it was probably the best show I've seen all year. I don't think I could have been happier. Add to that a comfortable sleep in a nice hotel bed and you have an excellent evening.

I'm sure I'm leaving things out. The important thing is that it was a great trip, a wonderful show and I would do it again in a heartbeat. If you're ever in Banff, Wild Bill's is a great place to see a show.

Until next time I guess.