So this Thanksgiving was a little different then Im used to. Instead of doing the Turkey thing, I took advantage of the stars lining up in the cosmos enough to give me a four day weekend at the same time that my favorite band is playing up in Toronto and went up for it.
Bear in mind, Im hardly unbiased. Ive been a complete Pixies freak for probably about ten years now. Ive driven out roommates along Monroe Avenue from playing Doolittle on auto-repeat for weeks at a time. Frank and Kim could have stood up there and pretty much read their shopping list and I would have been like Yeah! Whoo hoo!
Shocking confession: Concerts have never really been my forte. Ive only seen maybe 20-30 shows in 31 years of drawing breath, not counting bar shows, which would probably be an embarrassingly high number just due to the number of times Id go out for a beer and find so-and-so playing. This has been the best time Ive had at a concert yet, it was also probably the loudest show Ive seen so far, the most money Ive seen charged for a beer at a show (8 bucks a beer?!?), and the further Ive driven for the sole purpose of catching a concert.
I was surprised how young most of the people were. I was expecting a lot more late 20s early 30s people, but we were probably about 20 percent of the audience. Most of the people were probably in their early 20s. You could tell for some people it was their first time being inside a really crowded area like that because theyd do spongeheaded things like wearing heavy leather and jeans and their new concert sweatshirt in the middle of a crowd, suck on a joint a little, and pass out immediately from the heat. The crowd was generally pretty cool though.
The first two bands were the Marble Index, who were alright, and then the Datsuns, who remind me a lot of Jett/The Hives. Not bad, just not my particular thing. The Pixies kicked ass. They played a 25 song set and did almost every song I really wanted to hear except Into the White.
Vendors aside from the beer bandits were reasonable. 30 bucks Canadian for a concert tee shirt and 30 bucks Canadian for the 2 CD set.
The show aside, the trip to Toronto was pretty cool. I stayed at the Delta at Dixie Street, which had decent lodgings but way overpriced crappy food. Nice waking up to a hot tub and a pool though, and it got me seriously thinking again about getting a hot tub for the back of the house.
On my way up to Canada I stopped at CompUSA and picked up a 128 meg SD card for my Kodak EasyShare, figuring that it would be a lot cooler being able to take 105 picutres then it would to take 14 pictures. I ended up snapping about 50. Most of them are the back of peoples heads, or people waving arms in front of the camera, but I did get probably 2 or 3 really good shots of Kim. Kim Deal is my ideal.
Next show is on the 9th of December in Syracuse. Looking forward to it wish it was on a Friday instead of a Thursday though
Bear in mind, Im hardly unbiased. Ive been a complete Pixies freak for probably about ten years now. Ive driven out roommates along Monroe Avenue from playing Doolittle on auto-repeat for weeks at a time. Frank and Kim could have stood up there and pretty much read their shopping list and I would have been like Yeah! Whoo hoo!
Shocking confession: Concerts have never really been my forte. Ive only seen maybe 20-30 shows in 31 years of drawing breath, not counting bar shows, which would probably be an embarrassingly high number just due to the number of times Id go out for a beer and find so-and-so playing. This has been the best time Ive had at a concert yet, it was also probably the loudest show Ive seen so far, the most money Ive seen charged for a beer at a show (8 bucks a beer?!?), and the further Ive driven for the sole purpose of catching a concert.
I was surprised how young most of the people were. I was expecting a lot more late 20s early 30s people, but we were probably about 20 percent of the audience. Most of the people were probably in their early 20s. You could tell for some people it was their first time being inside a really crowded area like that because theyd do spongeheaded things like wearing heavy leather and jeans and their new concert sweatshirt in the middle of a crowd, suck on a joint a little, and pass out immediately from the heat. The crowd was generally pretty cool though.
The first two bands were the Marble Index, who were alright, and then the Datsuns, who remind me a lot of Jett/The Hives. Not bad, just not my particular thing. The Pixies kicked ass. They played a 25 song set and did almost every song I really wanted to hear except Into the White.
Vendors aside from the beer bandits were reasonable. 30 bucks Canadian for a concert tee shirt and 30 bucks Canadian for the 2 CD set.
The show aside, the trip to Toronto was pretty cool. I stayed at the Delta at Dixie Street, which had decent lodgings but way overpriced crappy food. Nice waking up to a hot tub and a pool though, and it got me seriously thinking again about getting a hot tub for the back of the house.
On my way up to Canada I stopped at CompUSA and picked up a 128 meg SD card for my Kodak EasyShare, figuring that it would be a lot cooler being able to take 105 picutres then it would to take 14 pictures. I ended up snapping about 50. Most of them are the back of peoples heads, or people waving arms in front of the camera, but I did get probably 2 or 3 really good shots of Kim. Kim Deal is my ideal.
Next show is on the 9th of December in Syracuse. Looking forward to it wish it was on a Friday instead of a Thursday though