*squeal!*

[rivka]

Great Big Sea is coming to Baltimore in February! Yay!

Great Big Sea hove in Long Beach, ha, me boys...

Oh, this is so cool.

Comments

[geekchick]

Heh, I just realized who this must be. =) *wave*
It was definitely a fun show, wonder if they'll ever play a venue that small again?

For geekchick's nostalgic amusement

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I wrote up this little description of that show at Iota 'way back then, and I'll cut and paste it here:

Chris had already been to the venue once before, and he warned me that it was small. *Very* small. Also, we knew that there were no advanced ticket sales -- they played for cover only ($7.50 U.S.). A couple of days ahead of time, I started worrying about this. I mean, what if we showed up too late and the line was around the block, and I'd come all that way and didn't get in? So I played it safe and showed up at 5:00 when the place opened, for a 9:30 show.

The place was deserted, except for the bartender and the bar owner. Oh yeah, and the band. ;-) I walked in to the club, a room that was maybe three times the size of our living room, and found the band sitting there calmly eating dinner.

I just stood there staring for about 10 seconds, and then finally I shook my star-struck self loose and remembered why I had come there early -- to get good seats! So I sat down to claim the best seat in the house, a booth about five feet from the stage, and right in front of the sound guy. I opened up my book. I read the same page about six times. I realized I was too excited to read, and closed the book.

About this time, a young man came in and looked around for a while. Eventually, he came up and asked me: "Are you with the band?" I responded that no, I was just a fan. He said "oh" and went up to Alan Doyle. "Are you with the band?" I heard him say. I cringed. He answered yes, and the guy went on: "What kind of music do you play?" I hid my head in my hands so I didn't hear the answer, and by the time I had recovered, the guy was at the bar ordering a drink.

I looked over at the band again and thought about how humbling this all must be. They all looked really tired and somewhat dejected, so I decided to go say something nice to them. I walked across the room and said: "Well, you'll have at least one rabid Great Big Sea fan here tonight. I came all the way from Edmonton for this." They seemed impressed, and pleased. Alan Doyle introduced himself, and I introduced myself. I noticed that Sean McCann was wearing a Splendour Bog T-shirt, and commented on that, and he mentioned that he should drop them an email at some point. I said that I'd first seen them at the Edmonton Folk Festival in 1997 and had tried to catch every show between Edmonton and Calgary since then, and mentioned that I was used to them looking a lot smaller with audiences of 2000+. I then realized that if I talked to them any longer, I'd find myself stammering, so I excused myself and went back to my seat.

It was a long couple of hours from then on, but I got through it with the help of a beer and some cheese fries. The band left the bar and went out to their bus parked out front. At one point one of the other band members whose name I don't know came back in to get a guitar. I noticed he'd changed into an Edmonton Folk Festival T-shirt, and he grinned at me. (I should have said "Nice shirt", but he was gone too fast.)

The place started filling up slowly. The seating went fast, and then it was standing room only. I'd say there were a good 50 people there up until the last half hour before the opening act went on. Then all of a sudden a huge group showed up, all at once, bringing the total to about 75 people in the one room. I was sure we were breaking fire codes! No one was let in after that. Chris and Cathy finally arrived eventually, and were very impressed with the seat I'd reserved for them.

For geekchick's nostalgic amusement, continued

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

[...]

The opening act was a very good Australian guitarist, whose name I've forgotten. Great Big Sea finally went on at about 10:30, opening with "Ordinary Day". They definitely picked up steam quickly, and seemed very happy that the place was so packed. We found out *why* there were so many people there at one point when Alan Doyle said: "We're really close to Washington, aren't we?", and a woman with the huge group that had come in all at once yelled out: "We're from the Canadian embassy!" What this meant was that the audience was a weird mixture of really big Great Big Sea fans and people who hadn't heard anything they'd ever done. A *very* enthusiastic crowd, though.

The band was very silly -- describing Newfoundland as "the Hawaii of Canada", for example. Alan Doyle also couldn't resist cracking a couple of political jokes. At one point he started playing "Don't Mess around with Jim", and when he got to the last line of the chorus, he changed the words to "you don't mess around with ... a 21-year-old intern and expect to get away with it." This elicited cheers. (I wasn't sure how to take that.)

Anyway, they were fantastic. I haven't enjoyed a Great Big Sea show that much since the first time I saw them from the front row at a folkfest workshop. The best thing about the show (aside from actually being able to see them) was probably the fact that they did some of the quieter a capella numbers they haven't been able to do recently due to screaming teenage girls. It was the first time I'd heard "The Chemical Worker's Song" live, for example, since their show in Red Deer a year ago.

After the show was over, I asked the bar owner if I could have one of the concert posters, and he gave it to me. As we were leaving, I noticed that Alan Doyle was standing outside the bus talking to some folks. I asked him to sign it as a remembrance of that crazy thing I'd done in coming all the way to Washington to see them. He said: "It's Jennie, right?" I said: "With an I-E". And he wrote: "To Jennie. Edmonton --> Arlington!", and signed it. It's hanging in my office now.

I went back to Chris's apartment very happy. :-)

-nostalgicJ