On Thursday night, A & I went to Bluesfest. As the previous post mentioned, my plans with my parents had fallen through, so I was a bit bummed about the whole situation. I still hadn’t found anyone to take the tickets, since everyone else either couldn’t go or was already going. No one was buying, so I thought I’d just give the tickets away. I tweeted that I had 2 free tickets to Bluesfest to give away, and within 5 minutes they were spoken for. It turned out pretty well – the guy I gave them to worked with kids at CHEO, and apparently they went to some kids with Cystic Fibrosis. That’s cool.
Anyhow, Bluesfest was HOT at first. We got there around 6pm. We wandered around since no one we really cared about was playing until 8 pm. We got food. It sucked. I had a really shitty vegetable curry from Rose’s Curry booth. Man, it was gross. Tasted like canned tomato soup with canned vegetables, with no spice, only slightly warmed. And it was $7.50! Avoid that place. I ended up tossing most of it. After that, the weather was looking very ominous.
We met up with some friends. We had heard a bit of the Bacon Brothers, and they were a bit meh, to be honest. Not my thing. It was cool to see Kevin Bacon. I hadn’t really paid attention to him since Tremors came out. Shortly after that, it started POURING rain. I have never welcomed rain so much in my life. It was a short storm, but long and hard enough to get completely soaked. It was great. After that, we were all damp, but we were not dying of heat. It was great.
We caught most of the Moody Blues’ set. They pretty much met all expectations. I felt obligated to check them out, since they were the band my parents had intended to see at Bluesfest, and I knew they’d want me to report back. I knew one song, “Your Wildest Dreams” and that’s pretty much it. That one song was good though. The rest were proggy psychedelic flute based songs that I don’t really go in for, but some folks seemed into it.
We left after they played that song I knew, because Andrew Bird was going to start soon over at the Hard Rock stage. Andrew Bird was one of two artists that I actually wanted to see that night, the other being the B52s. I’ve liked Mr Bird since about 2004ish, when my brother got me into his stuff. He’s a weird guy, Mr. Bird. He plays a bunch of instruments (violin, guitar, xylophone) and whistles like a pro. The whistling is particularly endearing to me, since I can’t whistle worth two shits. Anyhow, his set had me in awe. It was the highlight of the night, really. I had no idea he played all by himself, looping his previously played instruments while he played over them with other stuff. I’d seen pictures of him and thought he was OK looking, but in person he was quite a handsome guy. That was a nice bonus.
We left his set near the end because we wanted to head over to see the B52s at the MNBA stage. This stage was on the other end of the park, of course. Once we’d got there, we secured a spot stage-right and the show started almost immediately. I didn’t take any pictures of the B52s, since we were too busy dancing and stuff. They were great too, but I expected them to be pretty damn good, given their reputation. They played some old stuff and most of the hits, but they also played some new stuff. The new stuff was OK, but the old stuff is more fun. Oh well. It was still a great show and my legs were feeling it afterwards. Kate Pierson (the redhead in the band) is 62 years old! Blows my mind.
We got home fairly easily, having relied on OCTranspo to get us there and back. We’re now living in a location where there are several bus route options for getting home, instead of one. This made it quick and fairly painless. And the bus had air conditioning. And I had taken the Friday off work, so I didn’t have to worry about being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 8 AM the next day. All in all, a good experience at Bluesfest!
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Friday Cat Bloggin’ – Cats don’t like explosions
Kiki’s doing well.
She had a rough night on Wednesday. We had that big thunder storm here, at least in the East end of Ottawa. It was pretty intense for a little while. We had a really close lightning strike, about 200 ft away from our building. It hit a hydro pole, and the power flashed off for a few seconds before coming back on. Firetrucks showed up shortly after, but didn’t stay very long. I guess it looked OK.
Then, about 20 minutes later (after everyone had left, of course) there was a loud BZZZZZZUT noise, and we saw a plume of smoke come up from the pole. The sound it made was so cartoonish and bizarre*. And LOUD. Never heard anything like it before. The power went out, and stayed out, until about 4:30 AM. The only reason I noticed when it came on was because the hydro guys fixing it were shouting at each other from the bucket trucks, and it woke me up. I never really got back to sleep. Thursday was rough.
ANYhow – I wanted to tell you about Kiki. She has always been pretty cool with storms. I guess this one was too close for comfort. After that huge lightning strike, she ran under the bed and wouldn’t come out. Then, when the transformer blew up, she tore out from under the bed, hammered into A in the hallway, and hid under the kitchen table. I didn’t know she could move that fast. Poor baby. I hope this experience hasn’t been too traumatic. She seems fine now, but who knows how she’ll be in the next storm. Kiki doesn’t need to be any more neurotic.
* This is a great example of the sound of a transformer blowing up. I didn’t take this video. Explosion at 1:15ish in the video.