In my state of so-called MumDumb I had completely missed getting tickets to see Blue Rodeo in Banff during the pre-sale. Sacrilege, I know. So my BR cohort walked over to the Jube one day and picked up tickets for the January 6th show. Because she'd done the groundwork and it had happened before the busy holiday season (the REALLY busy holiday season) it had slipped my mind until this week that I was in fact going to the concert.
We started with dinner at the Lido (of course) and moved on to the concert. As usual, I made the mistake of stopping by the merchandise table. That lead to the adding of a Cuddy hockey jersey to my wardrobe. I really wanted the Keelor one too but that will have to wait. Truth be told, I don't really need either but one jersey is black and the other is white as though BR has both home and away colours. That's the kind of marketing I'm easy prey for. The warm-up act was Cuff the Duke (http://www.cufftheduke.ca/). Front man Wayne Petti has decidedly needy moments but in such a charming way that you can't help but like him. The group has a very retro sound that fits perfectly with Wayne's bake-lite specs and ranges from soft ballads to all-out rockers. With solid lyrics and a big sound I will definitely try and see them again preferably in a smaller setting (maybe even Broken City).
As for BR, my husband summed it up pretty well this morning “I'm not even going to ask you how the concert was because Jim Cuddy could read his tax returns for the last four years and you would still think it was great.” I'm wishing I would have gotten tickets for both nights. BR (http://www.bluerodeo.com/) is one of those groups I could see again and again and again because I've never heard one of their songs in concert sound exactly the same as the last time I heard it. My favourite song from the new album “The Things We Left Behind” is “One Light Left in Heaven”. Some are the lyrics are as follows:
You know I’ll wait here for you
I’ll wait here for you
No matter where you go
Or what you put me through
And I don’t know if you’ll come back to me
But baby if you do
I’ll be waiting for you
By the end of the song is changed to:
And I don’t know if you’ll come back to me
Or if I want you to
It's one of those heart-wrenching things. Most of us have probably had people in our life that we can't decide whether we'd be better off without or not.
In five or six years I'll be able to take Simon to his first BR concert. I can't wait.