Daily ticket stories
This is the last concert I saw. Covid was just ramping up when I attended this wonderful show featuring Angela Hewitt playing the music of Bach, and while I enjoyed it immensely I sure am looking forward to seeing another concert sometime soon. Not since I started going to concerts at the age of fourteen have I gone a year without sharing a live musical performance with thousands of strangers, and I’m dying to do it again.
Sure, I understand that Canada’s vast size and varying demographics demand tailored responses to the pandemic. I’m not saying that we should all simultaneously be at the same alert level, but wouldn’t it be nice if the next time someone tells you their province has moved to Code Plaid you knew what they were talking about?
I was in line for a Jack & Coke when the music started. I could hear that it was Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes playing the great Duane Allman instrumental track Little Martha. Drink in hand I flew up the stairs and caught the last bit of the opener as I was finding my seat…
March 7th, 2009 was the middle night of Phish’s triumphant comeback run at the Hampton Coliseum in Virginia, a super-fun sold out string of shows that marked the end of the band’s second hiatus. In addition to spending the weekend attending a trio of great concerts I spent a whole lot of time socializing and meeting m’lady’s US concert buddies for the first time…
As part of Canada’s 150th birthday celebrations Red Bull sent their crew to Ottawa for the first time. They spent a month setting up a downhill ice-skating track on top of the Rideau Canal locks next to the Château Laurier hotel that was nothing short of an engineering wonder. Complete with jumps, bumps, twists, and turns, it looked like a frozen Coney Island roller coaster but instead of two metal rails running it’s length the iced track was painted into four positively suicidal skating lanes…
Back in the mid-’90’s I was part of a really interesting Ottawa freakrock band called Bob Loblaw. In 1996 we rented some recording equipment, set it up in the living room, and spent an intense week creating our only album – Monkey Do – which we released on cassette. For the record, Arrested Development didn’t start airing until 2003.
Buckle up kids, this little torn piece of paper has a lot of stories attached to it…
One of the many, many commonalities shared between m’lady and I is our general nonobservance of common mating rituals such as celebrating Valentine’s Day or things like anniversaries. Heck, we don’t even know the date of our anniversary…
On one of my final laps around the internet before leaving St. John’s I discovered an interesting tidbit of a musical happening coming up at the tiny Gladstone Theatre: a one-man play that delved into the life and career of one of my favourite guitar players of all time, the inimitable and quite incredible Lenny Breau…
Right around the time I was starting to scramble for a Secret Santa gift for my guitar-playing friend Dave I received an email announcing Ottawa’s upcoming annual Chamber Music Festival…
Todd Man Out 