Post by HereIsGone on Mar 14, 2010 14:41:58 GMT -5
Okay, now unless if you've seen the brief write-up I did on my status on FB, you may be wondering what's up with title I had there. Well, in short, my luck on that day has been anything but consistent, vacilating from both spectrums and taking no victims (and by that, I mean me) it seemed.
Anyway to get the full idea of why I say that, I'll start with the beginning.
Thinking that it'd be best to err on the safe side, knowing that I wanted to take my time in getting to the venue so I wouldn't be a ball of nerves, I left a little before 4:00 to get to the show (it started at 8:00).
A few minutes into driving, not even out of my city and onto the highway yet, I heard this whoosh noise. Thinking it was just a window that just wasn't closed all the way I used the crank for the sides of the car I could reach while I was at a red light. When it didn't help, I thought that maybe I was hearing that because it was raining and windy at the time.
Turns out that it was the case and I started to think, 'Oh great, why today of all days? I don't feel like getting killed just for going to a concert.' On the smaller highway before the bigger one I had to get on to get to Burlington (I was taking a train from there to get to Toronto so I wouldn't have to drive all the way there and deal with parking), the car was getting pushed side to side because of the wind and needless to say, my nerves were getting tested. Things start to get better once I got onto the main highway so I started to relax a little. I smiled when an Our Lady Peace song came up on my iPod on shuffle (Consequences of Laughing), things were looking up.
It was a false sense of security however.
Once I got to the skyway bridge right before I had to make my turn off of the highway, any of the swaying I'd experienced in my car was absolutely nothing compared to the shit I had to deal with on the skyway. It was almost as if both sides were getting nailed with high winds and the car wobbled like crazy.
I was scared as hell to hit anything or anyone or to just die in general. I didn't really give a shit that I was doing about 20km below the speed limit (although I know I wasn't the only one) for that stretch of road. After what seemed like forever, I finally passed the skyway and eventually made it to the train station. I texted my mom and wrote her 'I got to the GO station despite pesky winds. I think I need a stiff drink now.
' I think she laughed at that because she texted me back and jokingly wrote that she'll have a drink for me when I got back, but whatever, that's another story.
Anyway, once I got to the train station it was a lot smoother sailing although there were a lot of people taking the train because there was a hockey game (Toronto vs. Edmonton) at the Air Canada Centre, but I digress, that's still another unrelated story.
The fun started up again when I got into Toronto and and started walking around outside to find the venue. Now, I didn't bring my coat because it would have been bulky, only a black hoodie so it got a little cold although still bearable. Unfortunately the zipper didn't work so I was a little colder than I'd liked since I couldn't zip the damn thing up without it spliting on me. Oh, and there was also the part where I missed the street and walked past the street Massey Hall was on completely and must wasted about twenty to thirty minutes walking around. That didn't help too.
Once I noticed one of the street names when I turned around (they were facing the other way when I was walking so I didn't know what street was what and admittedly, I mixed up what my mom had said about the street) and eventually found the place but the doors wouldn't be open for about another half-hour or so (now imagine what would have happened if I didn't come so damn early? XD) so I grabbed supper and headed back a little later. The person taking my order had it mixed up, but I didn't really care enough to say anything. All I had to do was take out a few things from what I had.
There was a line-up at the doors by this point (It was like...7:15-ish) but that was to be expected so I didn't really mind. A minute or two into waiting, a woman, maybe a little older than me asked me if I was going to the concert alone. Even though I was expecting something along the lines of 'Toronto's a dangerous place, you really shouldn't be alone.' if I'd told her the truth that I was indeed alone, I still did, prepared to say that I'd been around here many times before or something like that afterward.
What I was not expecting was for her to ask if I wanted her spare front row ticket and meet and greet pass because her husband who couldn't make it with her tonight.
Needless to say, I think karma was making up for all those things that happened earlier or that I was really grateful for her extreme generosity. I think I was more of a babbling mess saying thanks to her than when I actually met the band later on.
Anyway, once we entered through the doors, we were ushered downstairs where the merch table, concession and bathrooms were. Now, the only other concert I'd been to was for Three Days Grace/The Used/Default at the Air Canada Centre. Massey Hall was a completely different experience from the get go. I knew as much since the downstairs area they made us go to was a hell of a lot smaller than I would have thought and once we were allowed to go in the ampitheatre itself, my first thought was, 'Wow, this is so small and everything's so close...every seat could be a great seat.'. I also wondered what it would have been like if I'd kept my seventh row seats.
Regardless, the place was packed - this photo I took should be a good indication of that:
As for the concert, it was really good. The guys were on the ball and Raine's vocals were a lot better than what I came in here expecting, plus it was great to really hear the bass thundering, being on Duncan's (bassist's) side of the stage. It also was nice to hear Raine hitting the falsetto notes nicely and the odd time he would comment about the album.
The two comments I remember is when he was talking about the book they based the record off of (Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines) and said how when they were making the record, they wanted to add a bit of humanity in it and jokingly added that they partly did that because 'his shit was way over my head.' That and how when they made the song The Wonderful Future, they made it never intending to ever play it live.
In Repair - the only clip I got before the usher told me I couldn't record, only take pics.
That being said, although they went through the first half (playing Spiritual Machines album from start to finish) with precision, they seemed to have a lot more fun and energy in the second set where they played their hits. Raine even admitted that it was good to get the first done because it felt like the work was out of the way.
It was fun to have a few sing-alongs (bits of Clumsy, Is Anybody Home? and Somewhere Out There are the ones that I remember) and I just loved how they opened the second set by bursting into Monkey Brains. So much energy to be had there. For awhile there, I was a tad worried that they wouldn't play anything off of Naveed but hearing the powerful bassline (amplified because I was on Duncan's side) from Naveed itself near the end of the set was both reassuring and a memorable treat to hear. My only complaint is that when Raine told the audience to crowd around the stage after the bassline intro, I was basically squished to the point were my rib cage was digging into said stage with some idiot not helping things when he tried whatever he could to get through.
During All You Did Was Save My Life, the last song they played before the encore, Raine climbed to the right balcony.
After the encore, the people who had M&G passes were ushered away to meet the band. It took forever to get to them but that was only because they were taking their time with each person (or each group if you didn't come alone like I did), talking for a little while and signing whatever you had before taking a photo with the band (my most-likely retarded picture will be on their site a few days from now).
When it was my turn, I had my little notepad that I'd used for jotting down the set list for them to sign but then Jeremy (the drummer) asked if I wanted my M&G pass signed (it was a sticker that we were supposed to have on us) so I mumbled, 'oh okay,' and when I started to peel it off of my shirt it looked as if he was going to try to do the same or help peel it off Raine said, 'Hey, that's abuse,' when he tried to say something back, Raine added, 'There's a police man upstairs, don't want to get in trouble.' I thought it was funny and they ended up signing both the notepad and pass. Steve (the guitarist) was nice enough to ask how I spelled my name (from someone who's as adamant as me about how my name is spelled, I appreciated it far more than I probably should have). I told them about how I ended up getting the front row tickets by chance and Jeremy said, 'Wow, lucky,' then Steve asked if I'd seen them before and when I said that it was my first time, Raine replied, 'Wow, that's crazy.'
After getting my picture taken with them, I speed walked out of Massey Hall and by the time I got to Union Station to catch my train, they were all locked up (I must have missed the last train by a matter of minutes, go figure) so I had to go across the street to the bus station to get on the bus for 1:30 (a forty-five minute wait).
Just when I thought I was finally in the clear, about fifteen or so minutes into the bus ride, the driver told us that we had to pull over because there was an injury on the other bus and we had to wait for the police to come and in case we had to take the other passengers on this bus. Turns out it was some stupid drunk bitch (I will use that term because that's who she was known as on my bus at the time) threw a cell phone and it ended up hitting a guy in the forehead, making him bleed. She ended up getting arrested. I think we were pulled over for about 20 or so minutes.
After that, I had no more misadventures and it was a smooth ride to the station and then I drove all the way home from there without a hitch (roads were still rainy and windy, but after 3 am, but there were obviously a lot less cars out) and got home at 4 am (technically 5 am with the time change).
So that's my big-ass story. I hope you're laughing at my misfortunes as much as I was. Here's the set list and a few of my pics from the show:
First Half:
The songs off of Spiritual Machines from start to finish in order of the album.
Second Half:
Monkey Brains
Innocent
Superman's Dead
Clumsy
One Man Army
Paper Moon
Escape Artist
Is Anybody Home?
Somewhere Out There
Naveed
All You Did Was Save My Life
Encore:
4AM
Starseed
Side note but...holy shit, OLP started playing on the radio just as I was finishing this up and the radio guy was talking about my show!
Anyway to get the full idea of why I say that, I'll start with the beginning.
Thinking that it'd be best to err on the safe side, knowing that I wanted to take my time in getting to the venue so I wouldn't be a ball of nerves, I left a little before 4:00 to get to the show (it started at 8:00).
A few minutes into driving, not even out of my city and onto the highway yet, I heard this whoosh noise. Thinking it was just a window that just wasn't closed all the way I used the crank for the sides of the car I could reach while I was at a red light. When it didn't help, I thought that maybe I was hearing that because it was raining and windy at the time.
Turns out that it was the case and I started to think, 'Oh great, why today of all days? I don't feel like getting killed just for going to a concert.' On the smaller highway before the bigger one I had to get on to get to Burlington (I was taking a train from there to get to Toronto so I wouldn't have to drive all the way there and deal with parking), the car was getting pushed side to side because of the wind and needless to say, my nerves were getting tested. Things start to get better once I got onto the main highway so I started to relax a little. I smiled when an Our Lady Peace song came up on my iPod on shuffle (Consequences of Laughing), things were looking up.
It was a false sense of security however.
Once I got to the skyway bridge right before I had to make my turn off of the highway, any of the swaying I'd experienced in my car was absolutely nothing compared to the shit I had to deal with on the skyway. It was almost as if both sides were getting nailed with high winds and the car wobbled like crazy.
I was scared as hell to hit anything or anyone or to just die in general. I didn't really give a shit that I was doing about 20km below the speed limit (although I know I wasn't the only one) for that stretch of road. After what seemed like forever, I finally passed the skyway and eventually made it to the train station. I texted my mom and wrote her 'I got to the GO station despite pesky winds. I think I need a stiff drink now.
' I think she laughed at that because she texted me back and jokingly wrote that she'll have a drink for me when I got back, but whatever, that's another story.Anyway, once I got to the train station it was a lot smoother sailing although there were a lot of people taking the train because there was a hockey game (Toronto vs. Edmonton) at the Air Canada Centre, but I digress, that's still another unrelated story.
The fun started up again when I got into Toronto and and started walking around outside to find the venue. Now, I didn't bring my coat because it would have been bulky, only a black hoodie so it got a little cold although still bearable. Unfortunately the zipper didn't work so I was a little colder than I'd liked since I couldn't zip the damn thing up without it spliting on me. Oh, and there was also the part where I missed the street and walked past the street Massey Hall was on completely and must wasted about twenty to thirty minutes walking around. That didn't help too.
Once I noticed one of the street names when I turned around (they were facing the other way when I was walking so I didn't know what street was what and admittedly, I mixed up what my mom had said about the street) and eventually found the place but the doors wouldn't be open for about another half-hour or so (now imagine what would have happened if I didn't come so damn early? XD) so I grabbed supper and headed back a little later. The person taking my order had it mixed up, but I didn't really care enough to say anything. All I had to do was take out a few things from what I had.
There was a line-up at the doors by this point (It was like...7:15-ish) but that was to be expected so I didn't really mind. A minute or two into waiting, a woman, maybe a little older than me asked me if I was going to the concert alone. Even though I was expecting something along the lines of 'Toronto's a dangerous place, you really shouldn't be alone.' if I'd told her the truth that I was indeed alone, I still did, prepared to say that I'd been around here many times before or something like that afterward.
What I was not expecting was for her to ask if I wanted her spare front row ticket and meet and greet pass because her husband who couldn't make it with her tonight.
Needless to say, I think karma was making up for all those things that happened earlier or that I was really grateful for her extreme generosity. I think I was more of a babbling mess saying thanks to her than when I actually met the band later on.
Anyway, once we entered through the doors, we were ushered downstairs where the merch table, concession and bathrooms were. Now, the only other concert I'd been to was for Three Days Grace/The Used/Default at the Air Canada Centre. Massey Hall was a completely different experience from the get go. I knew as much since the downstairs area they made us go to was a hell of a lot smaller than I would have thought and once we were allowed to go in the ampitheatre itself, my first thought was, 'Wow, this is so small and everything's so close...every seat could be a great seat.'. I also wondered what it would have been like if I'd kept my seventh row seats.
Regardless, the place was packed - this photo I took should be a good indication of that:
As for the concert, it was really good. The guys were on the ball and Raine's vocals were a lot better than what I came in here expecting, plus it was great to really hear the bass thundering, being on Duncan's (bassist's) side of the stage. It also was nice to hear Raine hitting the falsetto notes nicely and the odd time he would comment about the album.
The two comments I remember is when he was talking about the book they based the record off of (Ray Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines) and said how when they were making the record, they wanted to add a bit of humanity in it and jokingly added that they partly did that because 'his shit was way over my head.' That and how when they made the song The Wonderful Future, they made it never intending to ever play it live.
In Repair - the only clip I got before the usher told me I couldn't record, only take pics.
That being said, although they went through the first half (playing Spiritual Machines album from start to finish) with precision, they seemed to have a lot more fun and energy in the second set where they played their hits. Raine even admitted that it was good to get the first done because it felt like the work was out of the way.
It was fun to have a few sing-alongs (bits of Clumsy, Is Anybody Home? and Somewhere Out There are the ones that I remember) and I just loved how they opened the second set by bursting into Monkey Brains. So much energy to be had there. For awhile there, I was a tad worried that they wouldn't play anything off of Naveed but hearing the powerful bassline (amplified because I was on Duncan's side) from Naveed itself near the end of the set was both reassuring and a memorable treat to hear. My only complaint is that when Raine told the audience to crowd around the stage after the bassline intro, I was basically squished to the point were my rib cage was digging into said stage with some idiot not helping things when he tried whatever he could to get through.
During All You Did Was Save My Life, the last song they played before the encore, Raine climbed to the right balcony.
After the encore, the people who had M&G passes were ushered away to meet the band. It took forever to get to them but that was only because they were taking their time with each person (or each group if you didn't come alone like I did), talking for a little while and signing whatever you had before taking a photo with the band (my most-likely retarded picture will be on their site a few days from now).
When it was my turn, I had my little notepad that I'd used for jotting down the set list for them to sign but then Jeremy (the drummer) asked if I wanted my M&G pass signed (it was a sticker that we were supposed to have on us) so I mumbled, 'oh okay,' and when I started to peel it off of my shirt it looked as if he was going to try to do the same or help peel it off Raine said, 'Hey, that's abuse,' when he tried to say something back, Raine added, 'There's a police man upstairs, don't want to get in trouble.' I thought it was funny and they ended up signing both the notepad and pass. Steve (the guitarist) was nice enough to ask how I spelled my name (from someone who's as adamant as me about how my name is spelled, I appreciated it far more than I probably should have). I told them about how I ended up getting the front row tickets by chance and Jeremy said, 'Wow, lucky,' then Steve asked if I'd seen them before and when I said that it was my first time, Raine replied, 'Wow, that's crazy.'
After getting my picture taken with them, I speed walked out of Massey Hall and by the time I got to Union Station to catch my train, they were all locked up (I must have missed the last train by a matter of minutes, go figure) so I had to go across the street to the bus station to get on the bus for 1:30 (a forty-five minute wait).
Just when I thought I was finally in the clear, about fifteen or so minutes into the bus ride, the driver told us that we had to pull over because there was an injury on the other bus and we had to wait for the police to come and in case we had to take the other passengers on this bus. Turns out it was some stupid drunk bitch (I will use that term because that's who she was known as on my bus at the time) threw a cell phone and it ended up hitting a guy in the forehead, making him bleed. She ended up getting arrested. I think we were pulled over for about 20 or so minutes.
After that, I had no more misadventures and it was a smooth ride to the station and then I drove all the way home from there without a hitch (roads were still rainy and windy, but after 3 am, but there were obviously a lot less cars out) and got home at 4 am (technically 5 am with the time change).
So that's my big-ass story. I hope you're laughing at my misfortunes as much as I was. Here's the set list and a few of my pics from the show:
First Half:
The songs off of Spiritual Machines from start to finish in order of the album.
Second Half:
Monkey Brains
Innocent
Superman's Dead
Clumsy
One Man Army
Paper Moon
Escape Artist
Is Anybody Home?
Somewhere Out There
Naveed
All You Did Was Save My Life
Encore:
4AM
Starseed
Side note but...holy shit, OLP started playing on the radio just as I was finishing this up and the radio guy was talking about my show!
And how sweet of that woman to give you that M&G pass! It restores my faith in human kind lol.
