This is For People Who know What Rock-n-Roll is About
Tonight I am seeing my first concert since the start of the pandemic. It has been 2 years almost to the day since I was last in venue to see a band. I am excited. I’m not nervous, not yet at least. I have been to quite a few concerts in my day so I know what to expect in that aspect but I feel like it is going to be a different sort of experience now. I mean you have to be vaccinated to attend, it’s a limited capacity show and I will be wearing a mask…just a bit different.
My first ever concert was in 2001, I was 15. My parents took my bother and I to see Chicago at Casino Rama. I was very into Chicago at the time so this was an epic first concert for me. My second concert was three days after I turned 16, I saw The Who for the first time. The Who is my favourite band and I have now seen them 6 times. That first time I thought that it was going to be the only time. It was just after John Entwhisle died and we didn’t know if the tour would even continue, but it did and it was amazing. The fact that I have seen The Who 6 times is crazy. I feel so lucky.
One of my favourite concert experiences was the time that my brother and his best friend let me tag along to see The Tragically Hip at the Sudbury Bluefest. We drove up in the afternoon and stopped for some food before heading to the show. I don’t remember what restaurant we went to but I remember that for some reason our waiter sat down and talked to us for a while. None of us knew why…and we all thought it was strange. When we arrived at the Bluesfest there was a band on stage that we had never heard of before. They were playing this song and singing along with the guitar riff, not words just Ahhhs. We laughed about it at the time but my brother looked them up after and they soon became one of our favourite bands, The Sadies, and I have seen them many times since.
When The Tragically Hip played it was awesome! This was my first time seeing them. I was more of a casual fan but my brother had lent me some CDs and talked to me about how Gord Downie is on stage. This was the night that cemented my love for The Hip. I remember being amazed at the sound coming from the speakers and while I couldn’t really see much, I am very short, what I could see was so fun to watch. I remember my brother lifting me up so that I could see Gord during the line “There’s a heron outside, in violet light” so that I could see the movement he was making. I also remember looking up and seeing another friend of my brothers passing by my head while he crowd surfed.
When the show was over we hung out a little bit and wandered over the fence that was seperating the crowd from the backstage area. We saw some of members of The Hip walking from backstage to their bus and called out to them. The best was that Gord Downie came over to talk to us. I don’t really remember what was said but I had my hands on the fence and he put his hands on top of my hands. Gord Downie held my hands. It was magical.
You’d think that meeting Gord Downie would be the end of this story but it’s not. We all piled into the car and started to drive home. Once we were out on the highway someone noticed the sky. We pulled over and all got out of the car and stared straight up. It was the Northern Lights and it was one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen.
Seeing The Tragically Hip for the first time is one of my absolute favourite concert memories. Seeing The Hip was amazing but for me what makes this memory truly great is everything else in this story. I love the concert ambiance and I love having stories to tell afterward. Sometimes it has do with what happened on stage and sometimes it has to do with happened around you. Seeing a band that you love is really great but there is something about the energy from the experience that really makes it special for me
So here we are 2 years removed from the last concert that I went to. I miss it! I miss the energy and the excitement. I miss having new concert stories to tell. So on Tuesday when my brother texted me asking if I had any plans on Saturday and when I said no he asked if I wanted to see Sloan, of course I jumped at the chance. I am so pumped to get back out there and see some live music again.
I am also excited to get to see Sloan. I have never seen them before…Ok that’s not true. I saw them at an in-store at Sonic Boom. This was so long ago that Sonic Boom was still on Bloor Street, it has since moved locations twice. It was in the basement of the store and I couldn’t really see very well. It was great though. As much as I love in-stores they are not really concerts. I loved Sloan when I was high school and always wanted to see them live but it never happened. Now it is! What a show to usher me back into going to concerts.
I can’t wait to see what sort of stories will emerge from the first concert post-pandemic, I’m hoping that it will be something good. I’m glad that my first one back will be with my brother. I have attended so many shows with him that it only feels right to go with him. It is his first show back as well and I think that we are going to have a good time.