im not *exactly* sure what ‘the redeye’ refers to, but i’m pretty sure it means the really early flight, so i’m gonna gonna go ahead and say, it all started with the redeye out to calgary, one july 26th, in this, the 2006th year of our lord baby jesus. ian and his daddy picked me up at the airport, and i was out enjoying cowtown with a bike ride around the reservoir in no time. later that nite me and ian and his friends played a lil backyard soccer in the park over a few big rock traditional ale’s (great beer). more beer and some wings at the point (i think that’s what their local pub was called), pretty good first day.
the next day me and ian went to the zoo (in retrospect, me and ian did a lot of romantic “coupley” things together, we’re so cute). i love me some giraffes, red-tailed pandas, zebras, and hippopotami.
later that nite, the glorious folk fest began, and for us, of course, it began in the beer tent. not long after, the siren song of one leslie feist coaxed us out to the dance pit. the folk fest being more of a laid back, spread your tarp out and sit down to enjoy the music affair, they try to confine the standing and/or dancing (aka the young people) to small designated areas on each side of the stage. but as soon as mushaboom came on, the crowd was having none of that. we were some of the first to hop the fence and crowd in front of the stage, as close as we could get to the seductive songstress. alrite i think ive exhausted the alliterative (is that a word?) power of the letter s.
a quick jaunt to the beer tent and back, broken social scene came on to give a performance rivaling some of the best ive ever seen (white stripes, radiohead, etc). minus emily haines and amy milan, bss was still sounding as full and glorious as ever. like every good band, the live show is always a unique experience and this one was no different. highlights include a blistering rendition of ibi dreams of pavement (with actions), feist taking to the drums during the encore, and my favourite-yet rendition of anthems for a seventeen year old girl with recent addition lisa lobsinger on vocals.
standing in the field after the show, the crowd dispersing and my mind recovering from being fully blown, ian’s brother’s girlfriend tells us about the backstage pass she got from the parents she babysat for. still a little (aka a lot) drunk from the bottle of wine we chugged in between sets, i asked if i could borrow the pass and try to sneak a few pics with my new baby, a canon rebel xt. apparently there were no cameras allowed backstage, but i made up something about being a photographer for the university of calgary student newspaper and needing pictures, something to that effect. so i wander in, everybody is packing up and whatnot, and who would be walking down the stairs right toward me but ms feist and mr kevin drew. i snap a blurry picture (i should have learned how to use the beast first) and then start up a conversation. kevin drew wanders off and i’m left talking to to feist, whose about 5 feet tall and *tiny*. for some reason i give her the student newspaper spiel too, leading to a conversation about “our” great hometown of calgary. the only other thing i can recall saying is how drunk i was and how i didnt belong back here, which made her laugh and she warned me not to tell anyone else. other than that, i cant really recall anymore of my drunken ramblings, although i do remember apologizing constantly for my annoyingness, which was probably even more annoying. i must have blathered on for about 5 or 10 more minutes (although my memory is clearly not to be trusted) before kevin drew came back to rescue her, “ok 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… ok she has to go.” i did manage to snap a creepy stalker-like paparazzi photo of her though. i feel ashamed. it would suck to be (even remotely) famous.
some stumbling thru the streets of downtown calgary followed, those white robotic trees lumbering overhead. we had some drinks at the unicorn, i think it was called, or maybe murph’s, before getting a call to join some other friends at some hotel a few blocks away. i thought maybe a hotel bar for a few more cocktails, but it turns out ian’s friend dave is a world class piano player so we all just sat back comfortably in some random posh hotel listening to him tickle the ivories, as they say. “yes, we are guests of the hotel, thank you.”
the next day we took in the canadian olympic park, the 80s fashions in the museum being the high point, the excited for but ultimately lame luge being the low point. calgary’s landmark burger joint peter’s was next, before heading back to day 2 of the folkfest. the beer tent held us captive for much of the night, the warm weather, trad (down with the cowtown beer lingo already), and geopolitical musings made us content to listen to bedouin soundclash from our comfy confines. we might have skipped macey gray if it werent for a few excited people in our group, and good thing, cause her soul band and potty mouth won over this patron’s skepticism.
waking up before our hangovers could start, we got to folk fest day 3 in time for the 10:30 workshop featuring the newfound love of my life, leslie feist, with 3 other women singer/songwriters. i really dug rachelle van zanten. after some delictable curry, we caught another workshop, this time teaming feist up with country-ish luke doucet and his ladyfriend, as well as an austrian dub act named dubblestandart. quite the mix, which made for a pretty badass collaboration as a finale. we skipped out on the night’s headliner, kris kristofferson, for some more backyard soccer, this time with a newly purchased gigantic inflatable soccer arena from walmart. i wish i got a picture, it was backyard soccer at its most epic.
day 4 of the folk fest began with the triumphant collection of our fourth and final wristband; the quadrilogy was complete! a rumoured top secret ani difranco show was just that, a rumour, but we did get to see this amazing dude, that 1 guy, who played a magic pipe… you had to be there. we were enjoying our cheap snuck-in wine and raspberry vodka 7up, getting tore up in the hot, hot sun, when out of nowhere, as apparently is custom in calgary, the weather took a complete 180. the wind was really blowin up a gale, enough to break off this huge branch in the beer tent (not so much a tent now that i think about it, just the beer area). the branch broke a picnic table and hit a few people, including a baby stroller. luckily the baby was just fine, so we were able to make infanticide jokes in no time. we were actually seated right beside that table but had moved our table for a better view of the stage. funny how that works sometimes. after a miserable wait in the rain, we capped off the folk fest (and my trip to calgary) with solid shows from matt good (freshly divorced and bitter) and ani difranco.
onward to the rockies!
(actually im already far onward, but will pretend like im writing this as it happens)
