yeah, So i brought all this extra money home this weekend cause i thought I'd have to buy some $100 scalper special for the Live8 show in Barrie, ONT. oh, its free? neato. i didnt even realize. even though you needed a ticket and people were scalping them, I dont know , I couldnt understand what was going on really.
so we get there about 12:30pm and despite there not being too many people there, it took forever to get in and was very unorganized at the gate.
I was searched like 3 times before entering, yet never carded for beer. whatever.
.
lines for the bathrooms were unbelievably long and the crowd was pretty inconsiderate and rude mostly. Happens whenever you get a crowd of people who dont regularly attend shows. they dont know how to act. This however, allowed us to scoot all the way up to the first barrier and eventually over it and within about 100 feet from the stage.
some of the musical highlights for me were the Bachman Cummings band, though i dont think Cummings was really there, hearing "Takin Care of Business" was totally cool. Simple Plan was actually much better than i thought too, even though they were quite emo, they had a lot more energy than some of the old mofos (Deep Purple) who were there that day.
Tom Green and Dan Akroyd hosted and they were mildly entertaining. One thing i thought was cool was that we got to watch other cities concerts on the big screens in between our bands. so i got to see Pink Floyd/Coldplay/U2/and some crapy bands from the Philly show while we waited.
the weather was perfect, about 72F and as 4pm or so hit and Our Lady Peace came on "Happy Canada Day" Raine says as they are clearly Canada's second favourite band. they played their fitting "Innocent" hit and some song about something or other, "the best day of your life" something like that. everyone seemed to try and find songs that might fit the mood of the show or something. some of it worked. some of it didnt ("Home sweet Home" by Motley Crue).
The moment of the show for me was when the Tragically Hip came out and Gord is just insane. anyway, out of all the songs that people played to "fit the mood of Live8" i am sure none were better than their first song "My Music At Work". cause thats what these shows really were. or were supposed to be, i should say.
its funny cause when Gord came out and said "Happy Canada Day" and when on the small confusing blurb about Africa or something i think, and then went into that song, it seemed like the whole crowd knew why they were there and the whole place seemed to light up. sure we may have been just drunk and loving canada's favourite band, but who cares really. I mean, are these G8 people going to care about some show? no. and if they DID listen to us, would we still have a show to go to in 20 years?
all i know, is if we do have another live aid8 kinda thing in 20 years, i hope Gordon Lightfoot is dead by then....ugh.
thats my confusing very hungover working on my birthday Live8 review, hope you got something out of it.
oh, and the bassist for the Hip was sporting a 9:30 Club t-shirt.
and i ran into Neve Campbell at the show (literally)
