Making it through my classes yesterday was death. But, I got home and packed and by 1:30, I was
ready to leave. We had to wait for my friend Jamie (not cousin, different guy) so that we could give
him the directions, he was going to take Bev's ticket as she couldn't go. So, we ended up leaving
about 1:45.
Somewhere around St. Catherines we were told by a driver beside us that a piece of our car was
falling off. After a little bit of confusion and Carolyn sticking her head out the window of a car going
about 140 km/h (and hilariously mussing up her hair), we discovered that it was something that Deb
already knew about. The rest of the drive was uneventful, until we got to Buffalo. We managed to
tremendously confuse some pedestrians in Buffalo (B. from now on) by giving them the right of way
at a yield. They gave us a very strange look as they crossed in front of us. We got slightly lost, only because this bar is on a street that cars can't drive on. So, we gave up and decided to go to the
hotel first.
We're getting ready, blasting GBS in the room and singing and playing the tin whistle (2 of us at the
same time). Left for 20 minute walk to bar, which turned into more because this place is not very
well marked. We walked up and down … what street was that? About 4 times before we were
told that it was on the street over one. BTW, it was close to 5:00, I would say by the time we
actually found the bar.
We got there and it was empty and locked and the ticket booth wasn't even open yet. So, we're
starving, so we go across the street for "dinner". Ran into Kristy and Courtney while we were
eating. We managed to get the waiter interested in coming to the show. Didn't take much though,
he was interested to begin with, just didn't realize that it was that day.
Anyway, back to Tralf. A few people in line, maybe 2. I picked up Bev's ticket (he said "If she
comes, I'm sending her in your direction", but he released it to me anyway). Deb picked up ours.
We hung around in line, 5th from front at this time, played the tin whistle, excellent acoustics in that
hallway, btw. Now, it's about 10 minutes after the doors were supposed to open (so, 7:10), and
we hear guitar strains from inside, and through the doors comes blasting Process Man, I think. So,
of course, we all start singing along. We're thinking, gee wouldn't it be cool for them, if they could
hear us. Y'know, if they stopped in the middle of a song and we kept singing outside, and they
could hear us through the doors, but, alas, the hallway from the doors, to the stage was too long.
We got in and got a table right up front (small dancing space in front of us). I, of course, was
searching for Mary(Enid), Amy and Daniel. I made a good guess as to who Mary was, so
introduced myself and pointed out who everyone else was. Great to meet you Mary! Hope we can
meet again sometime. Never found Amy or Daniel unfortunately. Where were you guys??? AJ and
Mike showed up unexpectedly, well, I didn't know they were coming anyway.
The opening band came on a half hour late, but they were pretty good. The Push Stars (I think).
One of their songs is on the soundtrack to Something About Mary. (that was it right?) Kristy
dragged me up dancing many times.
The changeover was really quick. Danny is to be commended. I'm in the middle of a conversation
with Carolyn and I hear beep beep beep beep beep…. We all shriek and cheer. Then when the
cheering stops, they've put the music back on. They were teasing us!!!!! Well, about 2 minutes
later, it happened for real! Wahoo!!! It was a matter of seconds before we were all up about 3 feet
from the stage, we could have gotten closer, but didn't want to crowd the guys, fat lot of good that
did, by the end of the night, we were right upon them.
Let me say some general things now. The venue was a bar, very classy and upscale, carpets
everywhere. The crowd was a little more mixed than usual. A lot of people were there for the
opening band. There seemed to be a large Canadian contingent. Anyway, yes, the stage is about 1
foot off the ground.
OK, the songs: Ordinary Day, Donkey Riding (wahoo!), Fast As I Can , Ferryland Sealer, Con
Free, When I'm up, paddy murphy, how did we get…, eotw, gen. Taylor, beggarman, I'se the b'y,
goin' up, mari-mac, lukey, old black rum, process man, wave over wave, billy peddle, tunes, Old
Brown's Daughter, Excursion, Auntie Mary, Rant and Roar, Run Runaway A whopping 25!!! The
italics ones are in their correct places, the others aren't.
Interesting things:
One of my claims to fame. There was a girl to my left (I was in front of alan) and a guy came up
and around the front, grabbed her head and kissed her on the forehead. I saw this, and smiled and
laughed a little, then I looked at Alan, and he's looking at me and them and smiling at me and
laughing a little too. Then, I looked back to them and shrugged and looked at alan, and he's
laughing his head off, seems he shrugged too. So, we exchanged a little body language about these
two beside me.
Séan seemed to be looking at us a lot of the time, and me directly sometimes. He seems to make
eye contact with everyone near the front.
There was an idiot girl who came up and stood right in front of Deb and Carolyn, blocking their
views. No fists were flung though ;) .
Alan thanked the people from north of the border for coming out. We cheered loudly. OK, you
know those pauses between songs when they have their new instruments and they might be making
a little banter? Well, during on of those, alan had his mandolin and he was just strumming what
seemed to be random chords. Séan: "Buddy, what are you doing?" Alan: "I don't know." Someone:
"Sounds a little like Rick Springfield" Then they break into a rick springfield song, but only for
about half of a verse.
You know how Alan tries to savour every moment of the attention, well, at the end, Sean had to
practically drag him off the stage, unsuccessfully, I might add.
Sean let us sing almost all of the opening of paddy murphy.
Alan: "We got here a little early, so we went walking around. We saw the hockey rink. It was
cool." Sean: "Must have hockey. Must have hockey." Meaning he must always bring up the subject
of hockey.
Alan: "Rant and Roar has gone tinfoil. And next week, we're expecting it to go toothpick." Member
of audience: "How about aluminum foil?"
What they were wearing: Darrell: a shirt over a shirt (I think), black pants, cool new shoes. Deep
red almost salmon too, kinda canvasy suede. Alan: burgundy shirt (long sleeved), black jeans,
doc-like shoes. Sean: the new blue shirt (ack! The blue thing!), black blazer overtop, black pants,
kinda wing-tip shoes. Bob: black shirt, a new black blazer, black pants, docs. Alan spent a lot of
time poking fun at Bob, but I don't remember anything specific other than announcing that his blazer
was new.
Sean tried to distract alan by putting his head on alan's shoulder during Old Brown's Daughter.
Danny handed out the wrong instruments at one point. "Sorry, that was a miscue."
Sean pretended to forget his part of mari-mac, alan had to come over and whisper it in his ear.
Before singing the song, sean says "Now there's something about Mari?" reference to push Stars
song in Something About Mary i guess.
Alan broke 2 strings. Sean isn't using the pepper shakers anymore, two white cylindrical things with
black duct tape around them.
At the beginning of excursion, alan felt it necessary to do the moonwalk on stage (a very bad one
too), and consequently had to literally run to his mike with a look of almost fear on his face cause
he was about to miss his cue to sing the chorus. Concentrating too hard on that moonwalk I guess.
As Sandy said, Darrell sang the first verse to excursion twice.
When they came out for I think the 2nd encore, alan was first out and you know that thing people
do then they are behind a counter and they pretend to be going down stairs, but all they're doing is
squatting lower and lower? Well, alan did it across the stage when he came out. Darrell was right
behind him and when he passed alan when alan was practically on the stage, he gave his this "What
the hell are you doing?" look.
"Way down in Buffalo, sir" (I'se the b'y)
alan did his usual kneeling to accept a guitar from danny a few times.
Ok, show ended after two encores. Play lists were gone within seconds. We hung around at our
table, got told that they were closing in 2 mintues, then 3 minutes later, got told they were closing in
5 minutes, then 5 minutes later, got told that in 5 minutes, we would have to sign the lease. (there
were many other people still there btw, not just the four of us)
I saw alan backstage, but he was talking, then I saw bob come out the side of the stage so I
proceeded to get my stuff ready for signing. I went up to wait for bob, but alan come out from
backstage, so I said, ok, I'll go over here, so I was the first one to "accost" him. Got him to sign my
Up, Rayna's R&R, Jenn's R&R (yes, guys got you one each and they signed them too) and Deb's
small canadian flag. I had 3 pictures I wanted to show alan (yes, there were few enough people for
this to be able to take place). The first one I showed him was that one from B. before with alan and
bob in silhouette. He looked at it, and said "I've seen this. Did you send this too us?" "Actually, I
did." "I've got this one." I'm thinking omigod, he actually opened my letter and saw that picture.
Then I showed him the Alan-butt-fondling picture. Thought that was funny. Then that picture that I
have told some of you about of the village on the west coast of mainland scotland (similar climate
and land mass to NF, after all, they were originally attached) that has a few palm trees in it
(reference to the tropical island of NF). He thought that was really neat and wanted to know what
village it was, and I think he told me that ireland has palm trees too, but that might have been the
guy standing beside me, not sure. Anyhoo, my god, this is long. I got darrell to sign the four things,
and bob too. (sean had already left, Darrell: "He can't do this kind of thing all the time") cute thing
here. Alan had his own pen, so when I went to darrell, I told him that he was the first one to use my
brand new sharpie (just bought it yesterday). He found this quite exciting, was really proud to be
the first one to use it. When he passed the flag over to bob, who had his own pen too, he tried to
get Bob to use my pen because it was new. "Use this one, it's new." Bob didn't hear him. Halfway
through singing my stuff, bob got distracted by having to have a picture taken (from L to R: Darrell,
fan, Alan, Bob). I followed bob and got the flag back and gave him the other things to sign. Alan
broke into song. According to carolyn, it was Snakes Crawl At Night by Charlie Pride. So, I set
my stuff down at the table and went back to ask for a picture. Deb was going to take it. Deb
seemed to take forever to take the pic, cause she was trying to get the proper zoom, etc. I said
through my smile "Take the picture, take the picture." But only loud enough for the guys to hear.
Darrell said: "Patience, patience." I thanked them, then they thanked me (??, they've never thanked
me before) they took off, we took off.
We wandered around looking for a pub/bar to go to. Found nothing we wanted to enter, but we
went into one bar to use the bathroom. Now, you guys remember way back in june when I burst
blood vessels in my wrist from clapping? Well, this time, I was hopping up and down, but had the
camera around my neck, but it was slapping against my stomach so much that I had to hold it with
one hand, so I could no longer clap along. Instead, I slapped my left hand on my leg.
Consequently, I burst blood vessels in my leg (will wonders never cease?). So, I'm in this bathroom
stall and I shout out (we were the only ones in there luckily) "Oh my god, that is so weird!" Taken
out of context, this caused deb and carolyn to burst into fits of laughter (and me too when I realized
what I'd said). So, we leave and head back to the hotel, babbling all the way of course. We were
starving, so we asked the guy at the front desk where the nearest open restaurant was. So, we
went there, and who do we find there? No, not the guys. Kristy, Courtney and Heather eating there
with the opening band. While we were there, we saw 8 cops walk in (this was about 2:00 am) all
wearing bullet-proof vests, this really hammered it home that we weren't in our own country.
Anyway, we ate, went back to the hotel and talked for 2 hours, me making notes as we talked. I
could not for the life of me fall asleep until about 5:30. We had a wake up call at 8:20 (less than 3
hours sleep for me) I still had the song in my head that I had in my head before the concert even
started. (Handjive from Rankin Street). It was driving me absolutely barmy!! We had breakfast,
got a little lost getting to the bridge. I got home about an hour before class started, enough time to
write up my assignment that I working on in the car ride home. I spent that class blindly copying the
notes and thinking about what else I could add to this. Deb and I thought of two more things, but
both of us have forgotten them now.
The sound was great except for a little feedback near the beginning. Deb and carolyn kept a strict
eye on where my glasses were at all times. Didn't want me to lose them again. Thanks guys. A few
of us, while we were waiting for the guys to come out, had a Danny-leg discussion. (he was sitting
on stage talking with some people, this caused the discussion). I met Aura too, and her friend,
sorry, again, can't remember her name. Apparently, Darrell was wearing the shirt that Alan had
worn (and announced was darrell's) in Ann Arbor the night before.
OK, that seems to be it. Wow!! These just keep getting longer and longer. I apologize profusely,
but I don't want to do this in installments, and all of this stuff I want to say. BTW, Angie. I couldn't
get the hats for you, they weren't selling them. Jenn, I got as up-close a pic of sean's face as I
could. Damn it Sigrid, forgot about the excedrin, but I don't remember seeing any drug stores
anyway. I'll repeat it. Darrell wrote "I love Canada" on deb's flag --Fiona Younger
