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Published: March 22nd 2010
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As part of my Christmas present, Nicola had bought me tickets to see the Killers in concert at the Calgary Saddledome. Nic, Tina and Rick also had tickets so we made quite an outing of it. By this I mean we got pretty plastered during the day, well Rick and I certainly did. I'd like to say I usually have some coordination, but as we passed a baseball game, I decided I'd show off to the kids and smash a few home runs. They pitched me loads of balls, about 10 minutes later with still no hits and Rick in fits of laughter at my ineptitude, I walked off with my tail between my legs. Don't drink and skite, it always ends in tears.
I believe we played some drinking games on the bus on the way in to town, then went for a feed, some more drinks and a bit of darts. No animals or Canadians were hurt in the process. By the time we arrived at the concert I had a good 'glow' on. I think Nicola and Tina were relieved when Rick and I decided we'd try and get down into the more expensive mosh pit area
and leave them to enjoy the concert from their seats. I can't remember if we devised a plan, but when we arrived at the ticket checking people, I decided to look as confident as possible and just walk straight in. Amazingly, it worked. Rick tried something different; I think maybe the 'I've dropped my ticket in there' trick. It didn't work; they weren't having a bar of it. He could see me in there, being all smug so he devised plan B. Well, it was kind of a plan; Rick moved round to another ticketing area, got a good run up going and just sprinted flat out passed the ticket security people. I think they were initially stunned, which gave him a good head start. They eventually decided to give chase, but it was too late, he was through the crowd and had found me about 5 metres away from the stage!
Our antics were worth it, the concert was absolutely fantastic, the lead singer Brandon Flowers' voice is even better in concert. They had a great light show to accompany all the hits they were belting out. The only negative from the experience was it was on a
Sunday night, so work the next day was tough, very tough.
Continuing with the theme of concerts on school nights, we had heard a rumour that K-Os, a local Canadian band were performing a free concert at the University on a random Wednesday. So after work Scott picked Nic, Tina and I up and we made our way down to see what the story was. Rogers - a telecommunications company had put the concert on for its customers and then the next 500 people could get in for free. When we first arrived the queues were minimal so we decided we'd have time for a feed and a few drinks pre show. Tina started to stress that we'd go out and the queue would be enormous. So Scott and I did the honourable thing and made the girls queue up whilst we had more drinks. I ended up drinking far more than one should on a school night but it made for a good concert.
In the end we managed to get in easily, the venue soon filled up though and was the perfect size for a good concert. After watching the warm up band, a group of
concert goers started having a break dance-off. It was awesome, all these random dudes just cutting mad shapes. Yeah that's right; I'm hip with the lingo. After giving them mad props, we made our way back to see the main show. K-Os are pretty big in Canada and had been one of the bands I'd wanted to see whilst over here, so I was stoked to be seeing them for free. NZer's may know their music from an old Vodafone ad featuring the Mayfly. Anyway they hussed out all their good tunes including my favourite - Crabbuckit. I didn't know much of their new album but will definitely listen to it now, it was quality.
Towards the end of the show the band started hiffing out free t-shirts. What better than a free concert than a free concert and a free t-shirt. One was sailing right towards me, I jumped up at full stretch, but could only get a finger tip to it. I was about to turn and tell Scott that I'd just touched one when I realised he'd got it. I was gutted for about 5 seconds when I realised that it was actually hideous.
The
one thing that rivals free stuff is cheap stuff. And 15 cent chicken wings on a Wednesday night is one such delight. So the night after the concert (it was a loooooong day at work) we went to the nearby ranch and pigged out. We ordered SALT and PEPPER, THAI, and HONEY GARLIC (not sure why I put them in capitals - but they did deserve them). You can get all sorts of flavours. It really is amazing. What better way to spend the night than chaffing on tasty wings, washing it down with beers and watching some sort of sporting event. I even learnt a trick on how to get all the meat off the bones in one easy push. If anyone wants to give me the financial backing I'll start a wings restaurant in NZ (be warned, I may eat through the profits).
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Joe
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Just ran into this blog posting. Really awesome. The Killers are a great band and it seems like such a great concert all around. Take care, http://www.sevencorners.com/