Japanese hot dog technology 0wn3rz j00

People who have been posting about that hot dog thing should look here.

Great Big Sea Vancouver

So yesterday, annathepiper, mamishka, Fred and I all drove up to Vancouver for the Great Big Sea show in Stanley Park's Malkin Bowl, an outdoor venue. This is great because 1) I love GBS, and 2) I can only go to outdoor concerts because I can't handle the smoke and contained noise of an indoor show.

Originally, I'd said I'd love to go but only if we didn't stay overnight (can't afford it) and if Anna would drive back because I don't like driving at all, really, and I'd be really tired after the show and don't want to crash. And that was all good fun and we were looking forward to it; then Anna broke her arm and Mimi hurt her ankle and now I'm all about the driving every klick of the trip.

And my allergies were being deeply brutal. I was on two antihistamines and a decongestant and caffeine and it still wasn't enough; I had to stop for tea at a rest stop. I ended up chatting with the rest stop volunteer for a while (waiting for the tea) and we talked about it and he said the pollen levels were so bad that it was on the news. (I'm allergic to a variety of grass and weed pollens. :-p) He said maybe I'd grow out of it, though, since he'd heard of that. I hope he's right, too.

Anyway, we met up at Fred's apartment up in Snohomish County, and had tasty waffles there before heading out pretty much on time, which was a huge surprise, and then Canadian customs were nice and quick, so we ended up getting to the city about an hour earlier than I'd legitimately expected, and that was all great. Then: the map was wrong, we got lost, it started raining, the approach to Lion's Gate Bridge is under massive construction and we spent over half an hour going two blocks, so there was a lot of stress. And once we got into the park (finally!) and parked, they started to say that Mimi couldn't bring her chair into the Bowl, which would mean serious trouble for her ankle. So that was about two hours of AGH before all that got worked through. (Mimi did get to bring in her chair. Also, by that time, elf needed food desperately, and I'd finally had a hamburger. Mmmmm, hamburger.)

This was the first time I'd decided that I'd be upstage and I went right up front and ended up one row back the whole time. (This is one standing row; there aren't any seats anywhere in the bowl.) I was alone at first, since Anna couldn't be up front after all (very sad), until I met Cheri ("Sherry," not "Cherry") and Sarah, both of whom knew of Fred (who was also going to be upstage but wasn't there yet and would end up in a completely different part of the audience anyway) and we ended up yakking between the opening acts. They were fine - the second band's Person Of Talent appeared to be the lead singer/harmonica player; she also played guitar but her best tricks were the singing and the harmonica - but not anybody we cared about. (The second band - The Waifs, I think? - really had that "pretty good live, no doubt sucks in studio" aura going, so I suspect their brand-new CD isn't very good, but if anybody's ever heard of them and I'm wrong, say so. ^_^ ) There was an asshole back a couple of rows behind us headed up by this fucktard we hope was drunk who was going on about his Personal Connections To The Band, and we all decided that we really, really wished we'd smuggled in some large animal tranquilisers.

And then it stopped raining. Yay!

Being upstage for GBS was incredibly cool and I wish I'd done it before. 1) You know that thing where the people on stage look At You Personally (tm) even though you know they're not? That thing a lot of people do badly? Alan does it perfectly. I'd never experienced that before, and even though I knew exactly what was going on, it was still amazing. 2) The crowd experience, obviously, changes completely. There's a lot of singing-along and screaming up front at a GBS show and I was all about that. We even sang Happy Birthday for the new guy, Murray. 3) Speaking of whom, his bassline in General Taylor made all the hardcore fans jump; he's good down there. I turned to Sarah and said, "I see the new guy has something to contribute!" and we all pretty much decided that he was a keeper; I hope he works out. Fred wrote "Happy Birthday, Murray!" when he tossed the thong underwear up on the stage. Hee. ^_^

And it's loud. God, it's loud. But it's not trapped noise, so I can handle it. Being right up there and dancing with everybody in sight is really pretty great. It's mostly a girl fangroup up front, but, um, hi, that's fine by me. *^_^*;

They played one new song ("Beat the Drum") from the new release they're working on now; it, um, needs some work; I thought the music was okay and the lyrics were trouble; Mimi didn't like either of them. Anna didn't have much of a reaction but kind of liked the tune.

The unexpected I Wanna Be Sedated/Run, Runaway/Summer of '69/Blister in the Sun/Video Killed the Radio Star singalong-medly is sillier up front, because everyone sings along and is trying to figure out what is going to be next in the chain. It becomes a lot of fun that way. I don't know whether they do those completely at random, but they do a good job of making it sound that way. Maybe they practice them at lot at home. ^_^

Anyway, after the standard two encore routine, we headed back home; I didn't get to bed until after 2:15am, and had to get up at 6:45, and god dammit I'm tired. But it was worth it. ^_^