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always bugginyou |
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Jul. 31.03 @ 9:37 p.m. The friend I was supposed to go with ended up calling me at 7am to let me know that she was stuck out of town with a family emergency, and was therefore unable to make it. Kinda put a damper on things, because I was wondering what the hell I was going to do. My friend N. said he might come, but ended up being swamped at work, so it looked like I'd have two choices - go alone or stay home. I decided to stay home and try to catch Sam Roberts' set on the telly, but lo and behold, the coverage was absolute shit and I only caught part of two songs (out of three). At that point, I decided to just go down there...I'd be a fool to pass it up just because my friends could no longer go. Getting up to Downsview wasn't all that bad, but there was quite a bottleneck at the entrance to get into the park. Oddly enough, after half an hour of standing in queue (or rather, a big mass of people), I noticed that my coworker was standing directly in front of me. She was literally the only other person I knew that was going, and she'd originally asked me if I wanted to go with her and friends in the first place. What are the bloody odds of seeing her in a crowd of thousands (almost 500,000, actually), at the same gate (there were three)??! Slim to none. I couldn't believe it. Finally made it into the park, where there was a looooong walk to the concert area. We scored a patch of grass right in front of one of the big screens near the stage, and had the perfect unobstructed view the entire day. We happened to get there right in the middle of Sass Jordan's very short set (thankfully). She should really give it up. Really. Poor Justin Timberlake. He was like a fish out of water and couldn't have looked more uncomfortable on stage. Unfortunately, some bastards at the front felt the need to pelt water bottles at him, which was completely uncalled for. Sure, he didn't really fit into the bill all that well, but he didn't deserve to be assaulted like that. I have to admit, though, I have to give him a lot of respect for sticking up for himself and telling the crowd he was there for the same reason they were ("to see the mutherfuckin Stones"), and that he loves Toronto. Most bands would probably tell the crowd to go fuck themselves and walk off stage, but he stuck it out. And to be quite honest, he wasn't that bad. I just wish he'd have busted a few moves, but he kept it to a minimum (understandably). The remaining bands were like a flashback to my childhood. The Guess Who, Blue Rodeo (who was actually on earlier in the afternoon), Rush, AC/DC and the Stones. The Guess Who put on a pretty decent set, Rush was meh...they didn't seem to care too much and just played straight through, but AC/DC!! Holy shit, can they put on a show. They owned that stage. I honestly don't know if I've ever seen a band have such a genuinely good time performing. They totally got the crowd on their feet (most of us were sitting the entire day) and really into the show. I'd never have considered paying to see them on their own before, but I probably would've paid double the ticket price after their performance last night. Angus Young is so tiny! I called my mother (in Alberta) just at the end of AC/DC's set to tell her I was at the concert. I barely even said a word to her when she heard what was happening in the background and suddenly she yelled into the phone "you little bitch!" So much love. She was jealous because she would've killed to be there. Haha, serves her right for not taking me to David Bowie when I was a kid! I called her back during The Stones to make her suffer. Speaking of The Stones, they were alright, but I wasn't overly impressed by them. It was cool to hear the songs live I'd grown up listening to, but I wasn't excited by them. Keith Richards was great to make fun of, though. If it hadn't have been for him giving someone in the crowd hell for throwing a water bottle on stage at Justin T. during his duet with Mick, I probably would've gone on thinking he was operated by a remote control. The best was when he said "it's really great to be here...it's really great to be anywhere." No shit. Getting home wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. We walked quite a ways to catch a bus, but most of them were full or out of service. I was getting pretty fed up and decided that if we walked any longer, we wouldn't get home until 3am, so I walked up to some girl in her car at a stop light and asked her if we could catch a ride south. Thank god she was cool and said yes, or I'd probably still be trying to get home. Actually, from the sound of it, most people got home within a respectable timeframe. Still, I'm kicking myself for not at least taking this morning off work. Okay, this has taken me ages to write...I'm trying to concentrate on a Bio about Radiohead on MMM and write at the same time. Radiohead's winning. C.
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