the daily snivel

Last night I went out with my friends Karla and Jenn to see Hayden in concert here in Ottawa. I've seen him twice in concert already over the years, but I'd been looking forward to that night for weeks, and bought our tickets well in advance so as to eliminate any disappointing possibility of the show selling out before we could get in. This is because I've missed Hayden's previous two shows in Ottawa, which both sold out, and I wasn't about to miss a third. Opening up for Hayden was a band called Cuff the Duke, who were very talented and combined an angsty early Radiohead power with a real nice country twang and Weezeresque geek rock. I'm most definitely going to be picking up their CD from Maplemusic.com (since they had, unfortunately, sold all of their CDs due to overwhelming demand long before they ever made it to Ottawa).

Hayden's set was excellent, and he came back for two encores to much applause. Many of his songs came from his latest album, Elk-Lake Serenade, which is certainly one of his finest recordings, but it was hard to think of a favourite that he didn't perform, and I had a fantastic time. I danced happily, drank merrily, and didn't really mind all the shoving and crowding of the dance floor. It took the crowd a bit of time to warm up (this is the first time I've seen a reserved audience at a Hayden show, though those who hail from Toronto scornfully assert that Ottawa is just inherently sleepy that way), but Hayden's excellent music and delightful between-song banter got a lot of feet moving on the floor. Best of all, he played some of his classic older songs like "Skates" and "In September" (which he seems to trot out less and less frequently -- someone suggested he's not as happy with his older songs, especially the ones where has to shout), which made the crowd very happy. A lot of the hard core drunk people superfans, including myself, were crooning along with him for those ones.

I think what I came away with, other than glee, the consumption of a frightful amount of beer and a certain stiffness in the old muscles from shaking my booty into the wee hours after already putting in a long workout at the gym, was the sense that it's time for me to get out to more fun evenings like that. Notwithstanding the fun I had seeing Goldie earlier in the fall, I'd forgotten how swell it was to go out and see a live concert. I'll always make time for Hayden, but Ottawa hosts a number of great performances, and next year I'll be in Toronto, which is not only Hayden's home base, but also the destination (and launching pad) for a huge number of touring artists.

I also decided that it's time I start taking the initiative, and learn to talk to people more readily and express interest if it's there. I saw someone I know randomly start talking to a guy, and they hit it off, and by the end of the evening and all the banter, they seemed to have sparked up a friendship or... well, goodness knows what. But it's something I have to start doing, too.

In fact I'm pretty sure there's a Hayden song almost exactly like that.