2006-08-06 - 2:42

Where's Hacke when you need him?

Things remain busy here, despite my taking a couple of days off work. On the concert front, Wolf Parade was great on Friday night, as I have tried to describe. I really enjoyed Holy Fuck as openers, although Frog Eyes didn't do it for me. I know that some people really love those guys but it just wasn't for me. Singer/guitarist Carey Mercer did play hard enough to rain sweat on me, though, so I do have to give credit there.

The crowd was a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it was cool to see Barrymore's sell out (which will hopefully encourage Wolf Parade to return) and there were a lot of people who were really into it, dancing away and setting a good mood. Unfortunately, there was one ridiculously obnoxious drunk girl trying to show off at the front, shrieking randomly (often during the songs) and eventually breaking a glass on the floor.

I was half hoping that the band wouldn't play "I'll Believe in Anything" in defiance of her annoyingly repeated calls for it; but it was actually listed next on their set list when she started hollering for it. (Oh, and the set list was written on the back of a torn piece of a case of beer, which is fairly irrelevant but only marginally more so than my usual writing here.)

Oh, and I should also meekly mention that I added my last review from Bluesfest . . . which ended three weeks ago. This is why I don't try to maintain any web presence in which I'd be supposed to make timely updates. At any rate, my recap of The New Pornographers and Controller.Controller is up here.

The bad music news of the day Friday was Death From Above 1979 packing it in. That was somewhat expected but it's still a drag. You're a Woman, I'm a Machine was one of my favourite albums of '04 and I really enjoyed each time that I saw the band live.

As I mentioned, I took Thursday and Friday off, to coincide with Laurie's week of vacation and to take care of some things around the house. I ended up dealing with more than I expected, due to a few problems, but of the planned jobs, the most satisfying was finally replacing one of the rotting flower boxes in the backyard with brick. That was a fairly easy job and the three-layer brick looks pretty sharp, so I think we'll replace the other backyard flower box this year, too, if I have the time.

In other budget-challenging moves, I decided to go ahead and book a flight to Calgary to see my brother John in Banff, who I last saw six years ago (and thus, who Laurie has never met). That's going to be a great time.

And, the big news for the weekend is Aaron and Loralei's wedding, which is coming right up. Actually, in about twelve hours, they'll be married. Since I'm a groomsman for this one, I'm probably supposed to be on time, so I should probably go to bed now so I can actually wake up at a decent hour. (And hopefully, my ears will have stopped ringing by then, too. Wolf Parade is loud and I was right in front of one massive amp.)

J.