Posted by In what seems to be our new Christmas tradition, on December 21st, 2024 m’lady and I drove to St. John’s to see our favourite “local” band, instrumental trio extraordinaire Big Space. If my memorecords are straight this was our third such holiday excursion, and we don’t intend on stopping so yeah, let’s call it a Christmas tradition.
In fact, this new tradition is an extension of a Christmas tradition that I created for myself back in the late ’70’s or so, which is to embark upon a Christmas gift scavenger hunt through every shop, boutique and shopping mall within reach on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, preferably the Friday or Saturday evening just before the big day. I’m not sure why; I suppose I get a rush out of the rush. And a big part of the tradition includes sitting down somewhere for a drink and a bite to eat. When I was a kid in the late’ 70’s that usually meant a hot chocolate and a doughnut at Tim Horton’s, but once I looked of-age (in the much-too-early ’80’s) it came to mean stopping in to a pub along the way (back in the day it was generally the Little Rock in the Moncton Mall), where I like to enjoy a nice warm meal and a few frosty beers whilst I take stock of my purchases.
And so m’lady did just that, scouring the Avalon Mall and downtown St. John’s for treats and treasures to dole out to family members in exchange for same-but-different before sitting down for a delicious break at Yellowbelly Brewery at the base of nearly-world-famous George Street. After our meal-and-drinks we walked our shopping bounty back to the Hilton Garden Inn (booked free on points) for a pre-nightcap before strolling through a subtle snowfall back to George Street, where Big Space was performing at the small-but-mighty Black Sheep.
I remember the show vividly but I shan’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say that three exceptional musicians circled in on one another and improvised their way through two dozen well-crafted prog-fusion jazz-rock sonic confabulations in front of a sizeable, enthusiastic crowd. The band was eyes-closed into it from start to finish, and even if guitar monster Grant King told me at set break that his fingers felt like sausages – in a bad way – the crowd was with them all the way, not least of all me and m’lady, parked as we were at the front table behind an ever-growing collection of empty pint glasses.
Somehow we all made it to the end, although during the weave-and-stagger back to the Hilton m’lady stopped to take a photo of a poor little hair scrunchy that had been abandoned in the parking lot of an Esso, which forced her to notice that her phone was missing. So we lurched back to the bar and retrieved her device from the smiling doorman before returning to the scrunchy for the odd op. For the rest of the walk back to the hotel m’lady kept slurring something about starting a poor little website. I love Christmas.
Happy Everything, everybody.
Todd Man Out 