Featured Artists: Great Big Sea, Barenaked Ladies, Kardinal Offishall, Running Red Lights and Comedian Calwyn Shurgold
New Year’s Eve. When I saw the announcement that one of my all time favorite bands GREAT BIG SEA would be performing a FREE New Year’s Eve concert in Niagara Falls, Ontario I had NO CHOICE but to go…of course! Lucky for me, my friend Melissa loves the boys as much as I do and wanted to come along. Oh Canada!
We arrived quite early because we needed to get a decent space near the front (stage Murray) for the band. After a bite to eat we sauntered down Clifton Hill only to discover rain clouds opening up in the skies above. Boo. Neither one of us brought rain appropriate wear, so Melissa ran into one of the gift shops quickly to see if they had any cheap plastic rain ponchos.
And they did! (No these are not feminine products…)
Check out those Maple Leafs! Excellent! And we are ready to rock!
Or at least stand in the rain for the next 7 hours…
We were only standing around for a few minutes when a tall, dark, handsome glasses wearing man asked the two of us hotties if we wanted to stand in front of him since he was taller and could see over us. Quite nice!
Hi Adam! Turns out our new friend Adam drove up from Connecticut to see Great Big Sea! Very cool.
The evening was hosted by ET Canada hosts Rick Campanelli and Cheryl Hickey. Rick wore wonder pants, super stitching to accentuate his…um…yeah. And Cheryl was very pretty and sparkly and furry and had um, a skirt on maybe?
Oh Canada!
I wish I could have seen the Global Broadcast of this event. Being so close to the front and wearing an awesome poncho and penguin hat I’m SURE I made my Canadian National TV debut. However I can’t seem to find an online stream of the event, so I’m left wondering. Oh well.
The first band to play was called Running Red Lights they won some sort of contest…and were pretty good. The lead singer had on a houndstooth cropped jacket and SEQUIN black hot pants and a sequin beret which made me smile.
Next up…a hip hop band called Kardinal Offishall. Again, I enjoyed the music. Although I am not good at putting my hands in the air. Nor do I know any *new* music from 2010 that plays on 98.5 (and I don’t ever want to…) so the set was one that I felt a little out of place with since everyone else seemed to at least know the covers they played. Of course I DID know the Old Skool medley “Down with OPP…” “Hip Hop Hurrah, Ho…” Felt just like being back at the Frat Parties at Allegheny. One of their songs was a rap that mentioned Eskimos. (I kid you not.) AND they performed a cover/twist/ripoff of Blondie’s “The Tide is High” which is called “Numba1.”
Next up…ugh, I don’t even want to mention it was THAT BAD. A comedian got on stage to do a little 5 minute act and it was SO BAD that NO ONE in the audience basically made ANY NOISE. No laughter no cheers nothing. Which is NOT GOOD when taping for a New Year’s Eve Nationally Televised Program. So, about 2 minutes into the horrible, horrible sketch the sound guy stopped the act and said to the audience that there was something wrong with the “microphone” and he was going to start over and we were to CHEER AND LAUGH reminding us it was being TAPED FOR TELEVISION. Yeah, um…THAT pathetic. Embarrassing.
Our band friend Adam found a youtube link to the actual act which makes me shiver. “People talking bout me, talkin, talkin bout me.”
Make. It. End.
NEXT! BARENAKED LADIES!!!
BNL? At 8pm? Really? Is this what happens when Steven Page leaves the band? Poor Ed Robertson. Poor adorable, handsome Ed…
Turns out that the first BNL set was basically a warm up for the same exact set they would be playing LIVE two hours later. Grrr. Ok, not EXACTLY the same but pretty darn close. Plus, they weren’t um…(shhhh) that good. Sad.
FINALLY! GREAT BIG SEA! Who played a great set…both for US and for LIVE television. Whoooo! Totally worth standing in place in the rain for hours to see that smile of Alan’s up close…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x46lnkyPTI&fs=1&hl=en_US]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxjmgfvzbOI&fs=1&hl=en_US]
BNL came back out for the LIVE portion of the concert, which was the same set for the most part (snooze) and then…
2011 and fireworks!
All the bands came out at the end of course for Auld Lang Syne and champagne from the stage landed all over the first few rows (me!) of the audience. A few short minutes later I started moving my legs again for the first time in about 6 hours and oh.my.goodness did I feel OLD! Also, where did these 1000’s and 1000’s of people come from? Melissa braved the bridge traffic and we got home…late (early?) in the New Year safe and sound and smiling.
Good times. What a way to ring in a New Year!
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