So this weekend was pretty awesome for me. On Saturday I went out for a swim at my friend's (Mark and Arjun's) place, and got drunk afterwards with the guys. On Sunday I went out on a massive pub crawl to 10 different bars (the only criteria: no cover charge). And on Monday, I partied backstage with
Metric and
The Stills at the University of Ottawa frosh week concert.
Yeah, you read that properly. I partied with Metric and The Stills.
The concert was being held at Confederation Park (at Elgin and Laurier, if you live in Ottawa. If you don't, it doesn't really matter) I went with Mark Wilson and his lovely girlfriend, Kate. As usual, I was late, so I met up with them at 3:45 instead of 3:30. We then lined up for the concert which was supposed to begin at 3 pm but actually started at 5. Upon entering the Park, we bought some food to support charity and met up with some friends. With our food in hand, we sat down on the lawn and waited for the other bands to finish their sets so we could see The Stills. There were five bands playing at the concert, but we only came for The Stills and Metric; the other bands were pretty good but nothing I'd listen to normally
After The Stills played their awesome set (their first time playing live in 9 months, which included new and awesome material), Metric came on stage. You could feel the energy in the crowd, with ended with their amazing song "Dead Disco." The Stills of course played "Love and Death", "Lola Stars and Stripes", and "The Still in Love Song", but they also played new songs like the brilliant "The Mountain," and the sad "She's Walking Out." Metric's new material blew me away. They still have the same power and rhythm behind their music, but it's more raw (if that's possible). Emily Haines tapped right into the crowd's energy and gave us an unforgettable show. If you've never seen Metric live, I urge you to. Their show is so awesome that it's hard for me to explain it properly here (and believe me, I tried).
When Metric finished their set, Mark, Kate, and I leaned against this fence near the "backstage" tents. We saw Emily go into Metric's van and called her over to talk. After getting my philosophy book signed (Mark got his shoes signed, and Kate got her ticket signed), Emily said "Why are all the cool people on this side of the fence?" and helped us over. It was such a surreal experience, but we were "in."
We made our way to The Stills' tent, and struck up a conversation with The Stills and Metric. Apparently both bands are close friends and try and see each other whenever they can. I complimented Oliver from The Stills on his amazing bass playing on "The Still in Love Song" and Liam (the new keyboarder for the band) and I discussed several interesting points from Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy."
The headliner for the show were this band called
"Les Cowboys Fringants." I've never heard of them, but they're really popular in Quebec. By the time that the Cowboys got to their final song, we all decided to run onto the stage and dance to their last song. This was probably the craziest thing that has happened to me EVER. Mark, Kate, and the other Kate, and I ran up onto the stage while some crazy French-Canadian rock band was playing their hit song to their crowd, and danced with Metric and The Stills.
So much more happened on that night, but I don't feel like writing about it and its still kind of hard to believe that it happened. I'm not really star struck or anything, but things just moved so fast. Even now I'm listening to The Stills' album and thinking "I was talking to Tim (the lead singer) about beer and other random stuff yesterday."
Even though she won't be reading this, I'd like to thank Emily for making all of this possible. She receives this week's award for rawkingest person. I hope to share a beer with her and the rest of Metric again. I'll be seeing The Stills (with Jason Collett) again in Peterborough in about a week.
Metric's new album is coming out at the end of this month, and
The Stills' album should be out by February of '06. I urge you to check out both of these bands' music. They're good artists, as well as really good people.
