Cowboy Boots at the Winspear

I love blogging at work. It imparts that sense of doing something illicit without actually breaking the rules. But, on to the update.

This weekend was fantastic. In fact, the only way it could have been better was if I hadn't had to work, and thus could have gone to Calgary. Hey, hey, calm down, I haven't lost my mind - we all know that Calgary isn't a place I would ever actually CHOOSE to be - but, Calgary's Folk Fest was this weekend, and traveling down there would have afforded me the opportunity to see Ani Difranco live in concert twice in two days. Yes, that's right - this was the weekend of the much anticipated Ani concert at the Winspear Centre. And oh my goodness, what an incredible night.

First, That 1 Guy opened. Now, for all those of you who haven't heard of him, don't fret - neither had I until Friday night. And I honestly have absolutely no words to describe his act, except to say that I really, REALLY liked it, and y'all should check him out. I can now say I've seen someone play an electric cowboy boot, at the Winspear no less. Bragging rights, thou art mine!

On to Ani. Well, for those of you who know her, you already either love her or hate her. There are surprisingly few people of my acquaintance whose opinions of her music fall between the extremes. For those of you who don't know her, she's somewhere between folk and acoustic punk, full of political diatribes and intense guitar. In fact, she plays her guitar so hard that this tour has already been cancelled once; she was experiencing severe problems with her right hand, the nature of which I am not exactly certain. Something akin to carpal tunnel, though.

Injuries notwithstanding, she put on an incredible show, including one of her well-known spoken word pieces and a good dose of the dialogue with the audience for which she is famous. Actually, one audience member was, perhaps, somewhat too enthusiastic in expressing her adoration for the folk singer - it made for some pretty funny moments in the concert, though. Still, to that anonymous woman: next time, shut the hell up and let the woman sing! It's what we all came for!

The standing ovation before the encore was absolutely deafening. I have never hear Winspear so loud - it was a great deal of sound enclosed in a (relatively) small place engineered particularly for its acoustics. And Ani came out to do one of her more popular tunes for her encore, and the crowd got louder, improbable as it seemed. Actually, one of the highlights of the entire show for me was that encore; she actually popped her D-string in the middle of the song, and finished it anyways, re-tuning her guitar on the fly. Now that, my friends, is showmanship.

At any rate, the remainder of the weekend was rounded out by working a surprisingly busy shift yesterday, followed by an equally surprisingly slow one today, interspersed with my mum's birthday celebrations, which were alright if a little underplanned. Tonight I'm driving her back home to Cold Lake, so that I can drive home at 6 AM tomorrow, stop at my house to grab my uniform, and head off to work. However, looming on the horizon is my first day off since July 3rd. Believe it or not, I'm actually looking forward to spending the entire day in my laundry room.

Man, do I ever need a vacation. Speaking of which, I'm heading to Jasper at the end of August (Monday the 28th - Friday the 1st), so if anybody out there has that week off and would like to go camping, or even just like a ride, let me know! I'm woefully lacking in company for the trip.

But, with that, I should probably get back to work. Incidentally, I apologize for the lack of hyperlinks to the pages for Ani and That 1 Guy, I'm on a work computer so I don't have my favourites list handy just now. You can find them both at Righteous Babe Records, though - Ani's own recording label.

At any rate, hope you all had as great a weekend as did I. I will, perhaps, post another update soon if I can find the time!