So Many Concerts, So Little Time

I’m not sure what makes one feel worse: having fewer options for things to do, or having many options and not taking advantage of them. I fall into category #2. Living in Toronto provides so many opportunities for shows and concerts, yet since I moved here seven years ago I’ve been to 2 concerts. Only 2! I went to see the Barenaked Ladies at Air Canada Centre five years ago and Norah Jones at Ontario Place about two years ago. I only went to Norah Jones because I felt like I should since it had been so long since I had been to a concert, which resulted in me snoozing off on the grassy hill because 1. Her music is so mellow and 2. Everyone around us was smoking the funny stuff and I think it made me woozy.

Somehow the city’s artistic embarrassment of riches has resulted in my complete inability to choose anything I want to see. Plus I automatically assume that everyone will want to see Artist X or Band Y and I’ll simply never get tickets. Or I refuse to pay the astronomical amount of money for tickets; good seats for Madonna’s “Re-Invention Tour” a few years back cost about $300 and so-so seats sold for about half that.

But when I lived out east, I went to everything that came my way. I remember being in high school when Rod Stewart came to town. I mean, it was simply not an option to miss it! Everyone went and we all stood in line for what seemed like days for tickets. The concert was great and I danced on my rickety folding chair while Rod kicked monstrous beach balls into the crowd.

And what about the smaller bands that headlines at the local rinks? I remember swooning over PEI’s “Haywire” at Dominion Rink and screaming like they were the Beatles while I fought to rush the stage. (Why I thought rushing the stage was necessary when less than 200 kids were in attendance is beyond me, but I suppose it was all part of the excitement.) The Dominion Rink also played host to the band “The Odds” who opened for “Barney Bentall and the Legendary Hearts.” Their dressing room was a hockey changing room, and a few other gals (you know who you are!) and I popped in for autographs and general flirting/giddiness en route to the bathroom. Now how do you ever get those times back?

I bet if I still lived at home I would have made my way to Moncton for the Rolling Stones Concert. But when they played here in Toronto after the SARS crisis, I sat in my backyard and listened to them play in the distance because I didn’t want to be around 100,000 other people. Where has my east-coast-music-fan-gumption gone? I think it’s time I try to get some of it back.