2005-05-10 - 0:28

Mother 2005

As per usual, my streak of non-updating can only be broken by some quick concert news. First, the interim, which can mainly be summed up as work. After the Sage show, I was half-sick for the rest of the week, although I kept plugging away at the office.

The real push started at the end of that week, though, since a large portion of the coding couldn't be done until the boss finished his part. By the time that he was ready, we were bumping up against Greg's trip home for a wedding. With what we're working on these days, the work is much quicker with both of us coding together, so we tried to get the bulk of the project out of the way before he left.

As a result, Sunday to Wednesday was one of the busiest stretches that I've had in a while. Things did come together quite well, though, although there may be one last blast in the following week.

The past weekend was downright summery, which gave Laurie and I a chance to poke around outside the house, cleaning up the flower beds and blasting everything in sight with the pressure washer, respectively. Good stuff.

Tonight was the capper on a stretch of excellent concerts, with Death From Above 1979 returning to Babylon. The fact that it was an all ages crowd definitely influenced the night. (I can't recall that many people actually showing up at Babylon for the doors opening time; but then again, the hip hop shows usually take several hours to get going.)

While there were a few pushy people in the crowd at the early going, I found the mosh really well behaved, at least where I was, despite its size and energy. The band was great, as I expected after seeing their previous two stops in Ottawa. I think that I may have preferred the last concert; but right now I can't articulate why I have that impression. To be sure, it was another killer set.

I also enjoyed seeing Controller.Controller back on the bill, putting on a very energetic performance. Although their sound was a bit too muddy to really appreciate the nuances of the songs, the new material that they showcased seemed solid. I said hi to singer Nirmala Basnayake at the merch counter (she was extremely friendly) and she told me that the band should have an album out in October, which is good news.

Now that the month of huge concerts is out of the way, things are a bit quieter. Of course, Laurie has me in on another Bright Eyes trip in a couple of weeks. The entire Low tour got cancelled, so the June Toronto trip is back to its original sole purpose: Spoon. The Tulip Festival has the Sadies and Joel Plaskett coming to town, both of which will have to be game-time decisions, depending on how other things are going.

The real surprise, though, is this year's incarnation of the Bluesfest, which includes Neko Case, Calexico, The Dears, Stars, and Broken Social Scene, among others. I guess that the proposed Rollins/Shatner gig fell through; but that's still a better line-up than they've had in all the previous years that I've lived here combined (with apologies to James Brown).

J.