throwing rocks, and the bottom falls out of the ketchup
By Eric | July 3, 2002 10:00 am
Yes, I’ve been lax again on the updates, more lazy than anything else. Monday night I took Sara out to get her birthday present, so Target was the first destination, and I got her one of the oft-talked about tanktops with velcro letters, so you can make your own saying on them… It’s about time someone came up with that idea! I know iron on letters have been around forever, but this you can change up on the fly! So after that, since she’d been clamoring to make window clings, I got her some of the special “paper” that you can throw in the inkjet printers to make the aforementioned clings. If they turn out well, I’m getting myself some too 🙂 The mall was the next obvious destination, duh, then Andersons for a milkshake. Tuesday at work was kinda slow in the morning, but in the afternoon I picked up a new project, wiring a patch panel for audio and video in the Examinations video room. As it sits now they have to reach behind and plug into whatever deck they want to use, and this will simplify that greatly. So I’m doing the inital layout now, and as the month goes on, I’ll be making the cables and ends and what not. Shades of ITV, the skills are going to come in handy! 🙂 So after work I picked up Danielle and Sara, and we headed to the second Friendship Festival concert at Fort Erie Racetrack, this time seeing Holly McNarland, Edwin and the Pressure, and David Usher. The review will be up when I get home from work, but for a quick rundown: Holly was quite impressive, she had a great voice and I liked her backup band as well. Edwin was plauged by PA problems, and even when it was on, we couldn’t hear him. Right at the start of the last song, someone in the crowd threw a rock and got Edwin right in the head. He was bleeding pretty bad, and that was it for the set. (More on that in a second). David Usher was great, voice and band alike! The three of us ended up at Maple Rd Denny’s afterwards, and after getting my fries, I went to shake the ketchup, and got it all over myself! The bottom of the brand new plastic bottle had cracked and the ketchup was oozing out the bottom!! The waitress gave me the fries for free, so that was all good 🙂 One more day of work, then I’m off tomorrow, and even though I have to come back in Friday, I think its gonna be an extremely light day. 🙂
Okay, the throwing rocks thing. It’s stupid, no matter how you cut it. I don’t care how much you don’t care for someone, throwing stuff at them up on stage is not the way to show it. Didn’t mommy ever tell you not to throw things? My feeling is that this was a result of some lingering animostiy towards Edwin for leaving I Mother Earth in their prime to go do his own thing. Fans in Toronto and the surrounding region seem to absolutely LOATHE him for this. I personally don’t understand, but thats beside the point. The fact is, its now 4 years later, and IME’s had one album out, Edwin’s got two out, and its time to just let it die. But back to the rock throwing. It doesnt matter how much you hate him, for whatever reason, THROWING SHIT AT HIM ON STAGE IS WRONG!!! He was bleeding quite badly, now I realize (from wrestling, Mary made a Rick Flair comparison) that head wounds bleed a lot and heal fast as well, but again, not relevant to my point. The fact that someone decided to throw something with intent to injure at practically a sitting duck up on stage is disturbing. The culprit tried to run through the crowd, and didn’t seem to make it very far before he was surrounded. Even the rest of Edwin’s band jumped off the stage and into the crowd to give chase. I hope Edwin chooses to press charges, and I hope the person got the beating of a lifetime in the interim. The announcement came down that Edwin was okay, and was taken to the hospital as a precaution, AND that they did indeed catch the rock thrower. Good. Throw the book at him (pun naturally intended).
Topics: Blog | 1 Comment »
Tags: cat, friends, NT, target, video, Work, wrestling
07/02/2002 David Usher, Edwin and the Pressure, Holly McNarland (Fort Erie, ONT @ Fort Erie Race Track)
By Eric | July 2, 2002 11:59 pm
The second Friendship Festival concert, and it was just as easy to get into this one as the first one. There ultimately turned out to be a lot of people, but not at 7:15 when we got there. Holly McNarland had just started when we got to the stage and met Mary up front. She had a great voice, and the songs were actually a little harder and edgier than I thought they’d be. Her backing band was pretty good, and while I don’t know any of her songs, they ended with a pretty rockin cover of Heart’s Barracuda.
Next up was Edwin, and while I enjoy his first solo album, seeing him live didn’t really make me like him any more than I already do. Whoever did his mix had the vocals way down, so we couldn’t even hear him. They blew the PA twice throughout the set also, having to stop each time. His backing band was decent, but I know Danielle made the comment that the bass player should go find a new band because he’s better than the rest of them! Right at the start of what I think would have been the last song of the set, Edwin suddenly clutched his head and was bleeding pretty bad, as something had hit him. It turns out that some idiot in the crowd had thrown a rock at the stage. There was a huge rush in the crowd near the back, and whoever it was attempted to run away, and didn’t get very far. Even the rest of the band jumped offstage into the crowd to try and get the guy. The announcement came later that he was okay, taken to the hospital as a precaution, and that they caught the person that did it. Idiot.
Anyway, the show went on without any further incident, David Usher came out and played a great set. He sounded excellent, the band sounded excellent, and they put on a very energetic and entertaining show. The setlist was exactly the same as the Tralf show, except that Push was played instead of Tangerine, and no St. Lawrence River at the end. David let the crowd sing the quiet middle part of Black Black Heart, and then commented that his guitar player Kim really was singing the Operatic part in the chorus, which she proceeded to do without accompaniment…. that girl can sing!! During the encore, the crowdsurfing started, and I got some kid’s shoe off in the process… Whoops! He got a little pissed, and accused me of throwing it… “Um, what shoe? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” No big incident, he got a bit jostled in the pit in the process of getting his shoe back. But regardless, the show was a good time, and save for Edwin’s vocal mix and then rock injury, the night was a great time.
David Usher Setlist
——————-
A Day in the Life
Butterfly
Babyskin Tattoo
Blinded
My Way Out
Jesus Was My Girl
Black Black Heart 2.0
Too Close to the Sun
Push
Forestfire
Resurrection
Alone in the Universe
Encore:
Breathe
Crazy Train / Get The Party Started (Ozzy Osborne / Pink mashup)
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Tags: 2002, David Usher, Edwin and the Pressure, Fort Erie, Fort Erie Race Track, Holly McNarland
a garden of shirts for eleven fingers
By Eric | June 30, 2002 10:03 am
Kinda let this slide yesterday, so where to start? Friday night for Sara’s birthday we got the usual motley crew and went out to dinner, Buca di Beppos was really good, they do all the portions family style, meaning you get a huge plate of pasta and everyone takes what they want. It worked out to about $11 a person, so it ended up being rather affordable as well. The spaghetti was great, as was the garlic bread. For dessert, Adrienne had baked a chocolate cake, so we all headed back to Sara’s house to digest the massive meal and do some dessert. The party was then transferred to Danielle’s basement, where we played Taboo for a while, then shot pool, both while we were “indulging” in some beverages 🙂 Danielle was kind enough to be the DD for us (at her own house!) Thanks Danielle!
Saturday I actually woke up at like 9, and went out to buy a 100 ft chunk of cable, and did the wiring (if you can call it that) to my room from the basement so I have cable TV in my room now!! Yay! (And there’s still nothing on!). So when that was done, I helped Sara fix her computer, she got a burner for her birthday, and her dad installed it and it was working fine, and then when she went to go burn something, it locked up the machine. I thought it was stuff in the system tray not loading, but it ended up being that the old CDROM drive somehow got back into the hardware profile. Deleted that, and we’re back in business! Sara was going to work soon, so I ended up going to the Salvation Army on Military, and hit the jackpot! 4 SOUNDGARDEN SHIRTS!!! 3 Superunknown ones, and a Down on the Upside Album cover. $2 each! Pressing my luck, I went to FrizB’s, now that I could actually buy something, and raided the $3 bin, getting Local H, Lost Highway Soundtrack, Comes With The Fall (Jerry Cantrell’s live backing band), and I also bought the Cantrell Album. Best Buy had the new nonpoint for $7, so that was the next stop. Came home to mom and dad going to pick up pizza, so I ate well, and then went to go pick up Danielle for the F11 show. (Review will be up shortly). The show was pretty good, we met up with Mary, Mike and Joe, and Rick and Janet came later. If the volume of people is the same Tuesday for Usher / Edwin like it was last night, we will have no problems 🙂 The show ended about 11, so me and Danielle decided that it was too early to go home, so we hit Chippewa. Thanks monthly parking! Parked in my lot, and we were close to everything! We ended up at Big Shotz I think the place is called, and ended up spending the better part of two hours there just kinda shooting the breeze and watching all the people. Quite the good time!
Not sure whats going on today, Best Buy has CDR’s in the ad today, and I’m all out, so I have at least one destination 🙂
Topics: Blog | 1 Comment »
Tags: family, house, NT, Work
06/29/2002 Finger Eleven, The Full Nine, Mudmen, Tuulie (Fort Erie, ON @ Fort Erie Race Track)
By Eric | June 29, 2002 11:59 pm
Danielle and I got there right at 7, and were amazed at the easiness of parking, the price (FREE!) and the perceived lack of people there. The venue was much smaller than the setup at Mather Arch, but as far as crowd control and parking, this was much much better. We walked in, didn’t get two feet before we found Mary and crew, and proceeded to the stage. Tuulie was an all-female band, I liked them first time around, when they were called Verucca Salt. Dead ringers. They didn’t sound awful, but, blah. The lead singer looked like Kristen Dunst from a couple of accounts. Mudmen were on next, the bagpipe guys were wearing the exact same thing as last time! hehe! The lead singer radically changed his appearance too, they did sound the same however… They were entertaining, and of course everyone got excited for “Drink and Fight” at the end of the set. At this point, we wandered around a little, because we were not about to watch The Full Nine yet again. Came back for F11, and they actually looked like they were having fun up on stage! Opening with Drag You Down, they played a mix of Greyest and Tip songs, with 4 new ones thrown in (Last Scene, Panic Attack, Other Light, and Sad Exchange), which sound extremely promising, they rocked! For the first song of the encore, they did their song from the Canadian WWF Forceable Entry CD, Kane’s theme, called Slow Chemical, and closed with First Time. The sound mix wasn’t all that great, but I still think was the most impressed I’ve been with them thus far.
Drag You Down
Above
Suffocate
Shudder
Last Scene of Struggling
Quicksand
Temporary Arms
Panic Attack
For The Ocean
Other Light
Sad Exchange
My Carousel
Tip
Encore:
Slow Chemical
First Time
Thanks to the magic of YouTube, here’s the entire show!
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Tags: 2002, Finger Eleven, Fort Erie, Fort Erie Race Track, Mudmen, The Full Nine, Tuulie
no degredation for violet light
By Eric | June 26, 2002 11:57 pm
And so goes Wednesday. Work was pretty good, did a lot of little things for people, fixing logins mostly. Nothing really crazy. The whole money thing got itself resolved at work, and then when I get home, whats waiting for me on the table? MY CHECK!!! I GOT PAID!!! I’M SO HAPPY!!! So that’s a huge load off, I can actually afford to pay for my parking, my parents back for credit card bills, etc. Yay!
I recently found a gift card Amanda had gotten me for Xmas to Barnes and Noble, so I went out and picked up The Tragically Hip’s new Cd, In Violet Light. I had my heart set on getting the new Jerry Cantrell disc, AND THEY DIDN’T HAVE IT!!! Everything else was overpriced (the Hip CD was too for that matter, but the gift card made it bearable). I mean, 13.99 for OLP, can you say 9.99 everywhere else? 16.99 for Korn (13 elsewhere) 18.99 for PapaRoach (11.99 at best buy), and I gotta go back to best buy tomorrow and get the new Nonpoint because its only 6.99!!! That place is good for something… 🙂
So after that we hit the thrift store, media play, and ended up at Tim Horton’s for some reason. I was driving, and I still don’t know how that happened! 🙂 Surprisingly 🙂 we went to Danielles house again, just to play pool and goof around.Came home and watched the news with the parents, it ended up being the usual Bonus family circus…. 🙂 I really enjoy doing that kind of thing with them 🙂
Dunno what we’re doing tomorrow, but I think Adrienne is going to be back by the evening time, so the fab four will be in full effect for whatever we do! 🙂
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Tags: bills, driving, family, house, NT, Work
free fort erie
By Eric | June 26, 2002 12:36 pm
There’s just something cool about changing your console to have bright green letters on a black background. Its like an old monochrome terminal, and even though I wouldn’t want to run everything in it, the command line being that color makes me feel all old-school. Yeah yeah, I know, I’m not old school at all, and I don’t care. Thats not the point. I dunno, its all nostalgic and crap.
And I have no idea what I’m saying, cuz I’m hungry. At work, its 12:30, and we havent left for lunch yet. Normally, I dont care, but today I’m hungry! Got up too late and was too lazy to make my lunch, so I’m acutally gonna buy it today. I’m supposedly getting paid tomorrow, check’s in the mail so they say. We’ll see. This whole lack of money thing sucks. There’s tenatively three shows coming up in 4 days, and luckily two of them are free. Finger Eleven (with The Full Nine and Mudmen) at Fort Erie racetrack as part of the Friendship Festival, theres one freebie, then the Watchmen in Port Dalhousie (small club show, shouldn’t be too expensive, this one I’m not sure if I’ll be going to or not), and then David Usher and Edwin for the friendship festival again at the racetrack (another freebie!). But as sara told me yesterday, the big one is July 12th at Jillians in Rochester… VANILLA ICE!! To sound like a high school girl… we are *SO* going to that show! 🙂 Word to your Mother! 🙂
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Tags: friends, NT, rochester, Work
06/22/2002 The Tea Party, The Full Nine (Thorold, ONT @ Arizona’s)
By Eric | June 22, 2002 11:59 pm
I’m really beginning to dislike shows at Arizona’s, just because they open the doors at 7 and then make you wait. And wait. And wait some more. Two hours we waited, as The Full Nine didn’t go on until then, 9pm. They sounded a little better than they did at Shea’s, but I still wasn’t overly impressed. They played for about 45 mins to an hour, and then we waited another hour till 11 for the Tea. Ugh, much too long. Anyway, the Tea came out and played the exact same set as Shea’s and Water Street: Opened with Interzone, then Fire In The Head, Lullaby, Psychopomp (it started raining during the guitar solo), Apathy (at which point they stopped to get the equipment out of the rain), Walking Wounded (acoustic), Zahira/Favorite Son/Halcyon Days, Angels, Cathartik, Mantra, Save Me (Kashmir insert), and then in started to pour during Temptation, which made that song a lot of fun. They cut the show short and didn’t play an encore due to the rain, as they didn’t want anything getting shorted out. There were a couple of drunk people that were pissed, but I think everyone else understood that that was the best course to take. The band sounded great, but after seeing the same set 3 times in a row I wish they would switch it up a little. And as far as Arizona’s, its an OK place to see a show, but even thought we knew what we were up against this time, it didn’t make the wait any more bearable.
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 06/22/2002 The Tea Party, The Full Nine (Thorold, ONT @ Arizona’s)
Tags: 2002, Arizona’s, The Full Nine, The Tea Party, Thorold
Jerry doesn’t disappoint
By Eric | June 22, 2002 9:40 am
The show was awesome… Epidemic was really boring, but Jerry Cantrell was amazing, and I think this was the best I’ve seen Nickelback so far… the review will be up later, but suffice to say it was an awesome show! I even got goodies, me and Mary both got Cantrell setlists, she got a Cantrell pick too and I got a Nickelback pick… woohoo for 4th row!! 🙂
Topics: Blog | 1 Comment »
Tags: NT
06/21/2002 Nickelback, Jerry Cantrell, Epidemic (Darien, NY @ Darien Lake Performing Arts Center)
By Eric | June 21, 2002 11:59 pm
To start, Mary inadvertently threw out the tickets, so she had to call ticketmaster to make sure we could get replacement tickets. (For 4th row, we were gonna be pretty upset if not!) They assured us everything was cool, so we headed to Darien Lake, and instead of parking in their lot, we spent $5 at the driving range on the road just past the main entrance. It’s a very sweet spot, cuz you don’t wait for an hour to get out! ANYWAY, we got to the box office, and instead of tickets, we just got a postcard size voucher saying we had such and such seats (Section 100, Row 4, seats 5+6 to be exact), so that was our “ticket”. We got to our seats just as Epidemic was finishing up their first song. They were pretty boring, the sound was nothing special or out of the ordinary, and the singer looked like he was trying to be Aaron Lewis, but he’s as skinny as me, so that aint working! They played about 5 or 6 songs, none of which really left any lasting impression on me. After a short wait, Jerry Cantrell came out… and me and Mary were like the only people standing at first! He started with AIC’s What The Hell Have I?, and everyone just kinda sat there… After the song, he pointed to us and the handful of other people who were standing and rockin out, and hes like, “These people are here for a good time, what’s wrong with the rest of you??”. He got some more people to stand up, and then played Bargain Basement Howard Hughes, Psychotic Break, and got a lot more people interested by the time Anger Rising started. Then came the one song off of Boggy Depot that he played, “Cut You In”. Now it was Alice time! The bass player started the riff for Would? and the place went nuts! After that was Down In A Hole, and he closed with Them Bones. The set was just incredible, I couldn’t have asked for more. After getting hassled by the security guard, I managed to get Jerry’s setlist, and found that Hellbound was on the list but didn’t get played… weird. Mary also got a setlist, and somehow a Jerry pick came flying right at her while we were sitting down! So we milled around for a little bit (one of the few nice things about seats!), bought Cantrell shirts, and got back to our seats in time for the start of Nickelback’s set. They had a bit bigger setup than I’ve seen them with in the past. Lots more pyro here than in Syracuse, (Buff State didnt have any) and they had FIRE! too… I venture to say this was the best I’ve heard them out of the 3 times on this tour I’ve seen them; Chad was hitting everything, the guitar solos were good, and they seemed to be having a lot of fun up there. The setlist was almost the same as the other two shows, the order was a little different: Woke up this morning, One last run, Hollywood, Breathe, Leader of Men, Hangnail, Old Enough, Never Again, Where do I hide, Figured you (the new song), and ended the main set with Too Bad. For the encore, Chad and Ryan came out and did Hero acoustically, and then closed with the half-acoustic/full plugged-in How You Remind Me. I managed to get one of Ryan’s picks when he was throwing them out. So the show was a great time, and there was no traffic fight at the end like the Chili Peppers show!
[flickr-gallery pagination=”0″ mode=”tag” tags=”2002-06-21″ tag_mode=”all”]
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Tags: 2002, Darien, Darien Lake Performing Arts Center, Epidemic, Jerry Cantrell, Nickelback
a tea party for canadian martyrs
By Eric | June 19, 2002 11:05 am
Tuesday at work was kinda slow, we had to do inventory down in the basement, and compile all the inventory sheets that we had done from the day before. It was a fairly slow day, nothing out of the ordinary. The car was real damp, so getting to work in the morning almost became an adventure, but eventually it turned over and away I went.
After work, we ate dinner and then Sara and I headed to Arizona’s in Thorold to get our tickets for the Tea Party show this saturday. Getting there was no problem, and then to get back we decided to follow a different route, and we purposely got lost in St. Catherines. We happened upon a Salvation Army, and we’re like, Canadian Thrift store! Awesome! But alas, it was closed, so we hit the Great Tiger (I think thats what its called) store next door. It was like a K-mart, but only half the size. Kinda weird layout too. So after that, we were like, we wanna find a mall, so we looked at a map in that store, figured out where we wanted to go, and found a Wal-Mart instead! Straight for the CD section, with the exchange the prices were decent, and then I found a Watchmen “In The Trees” CD for 5.99 Cdn! After GST and all that tax with exchange it cost me $5 American! And if I wanted to get that CD at Record Theatre, it’d cost me like $15 at least. Yay Canada!
We passed a school on the way with a funny title, and then Carolyn told us that its a common school name in Ontario… The Canadian Martyr School! What?!?!? Learn how to be a martyr for fun and profit! Very interesting… so we took 406 to 58, under the Welland canal tunnel to the QEW, and then toured Fort Erie for a little bit, came back home and stopped at McD’s for a bit (Sara was hunrgry, go figure!) 🙂
Today at work so far has been okay, I went upstairs to exams to put out a new machine, and another guy in the department was playing the BB King / Eric Clapton CD, and then gave one of the women in the department a Stevie Ray Vaughan CD! So I was getting serenaded while deploying the machine! 🙂 The rest of the day seems like its going to be light, nothing really going on. Time will tell!
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Tags: canada, cat, funny, NT, Work