On May 13th I travelled to Vancouver to see the Bob Dylan,Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell triple bill at GM Place that was happening on the 14th. When I got to Vancouver, I saw that The Dave Matthews Band was playing that night of the 13th at The Plaza of Nations an outdoor venue. The show was sold out, so I went to a ticket agency to see if I could get a ticket for the show.
While at the ticket agency, I was able to get a ticket for the Dave Matthews show, but got talking with the guy there, and told him I was from Edmonton and going to the Dylan show the following night. He then told me about a warm up gig for Bob Dylan at The Rage, which is a bar that holds about a thoousand people. He had a few tickets left for the show at a hundred dollars a piece. Well, it didn't take me long to scoop one of them up. I was all over that. One problem, it was the same night as the Dave Matthews show, but the venue for Dylan was right across the street from Plaza of Nations. Perfect!!!! I was able to see two thirds of the Matthews show then went and caught the intimate Dylan show at The Rage.
I had been hanging with a friend of mine (Miles) from North Van all day drinking and doing mushrooms on a beautiful hot sunny day. So I was well lit up for the Matthews show, then off to the Dylan show I went.
And what a fucking awesome show the Dylan one was. Amazing to see him play such a small venue. This show is one of my top ten shows I have ever seen in my life, and the best hundred dollars I have spent on a concert. Dylan was rocking this night, the most rocking and animated I had seem him play. Good times!!!!
The following day May 14th, I got to see one of only five dates for this great triple bill of Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan play GM Place in Vancouver.
After seeing Dylan play a bar the night before, it was going to be hard to beat that show. But then, this was going to be my first time seeing Van the Man and Joni and neither one let me down, Van Morrison was excellent, Joni Mitchell was good and again Bob put on another awesome show. A great night of music legends.
On June 26th, I saw Big Sugar play a show I will never forget. It was a win to get in show, a promotional concert for Labatt's Blue. Lucky me, I won tickets for this show. The show was held at a airplane hangar at City Centre Airport in downtown Edmonton. The hangar is weird venue to be seeing Big Sugar playing, or any band for that matter. It was like a long curlling rink, so not a whole lot of room. I think there were about 300-400 people that had won tix for this show. The show was on a Friday night and the weather was shitty, with pouring rain happening just before the show started. Which made for a very muddy parking lot at the hangar. One we got into the venue, to my surprise they were selling cans of Blue for a buck a piece, NICE!!!! So you can imagine the amount of beer people were drinking. We were all making pigs of ourseleves. There were beer cans stacked in pyramids allover the long tables they had set up, beer cans all over the place, drunks everywhere, and I mean hardcore drunks,lol. How could you not be with cans of beers for a buck. The venure was extremely hot, with it being so small and all the rain outside. So of course you had to go outside for fresh air once in a while, which wasn't a great idea, cause outside the hangar it was a mud bath. People falling down in the mud, then coming back into the venue covered in mud, which started to make the inside of the venue a mess on top of all the beer cans everywhere. Finally Big Sugar come onto stage and start rocking the place big time. Sounding good a crowd that is primed and ready to party. It all started good, until about 4 songs into the set when the generators started cutting out,because of the shitty weather outside, this happened about 4 times through out the 40 minute set, causing all kinds of delays, which gave everyone even more time to drink. They finally shut the show down much to everyone's disappointment.
On the way out of the show, who do Lori and I run into, my friend A Bomb, I didn't even know he was at the show. But here he is standing outside in the rain in a total daze. Drunk, ya, you could say that. So from there, we carried on to our place, walking from downtown to the northside where I lived at the time. On the way home walking down Yellowhead Trail, we run into my boss whom was living above the Harley shop on Yellowhead, so of course he invites us drunks in for hoots and drinks.
All and all a very fun night, the show wasn't as good as expected for a Big Sugar concert, but it surely wasn't the bands fault, bad venue, bad weather, but good times nonetheless. I'll never forget that show. The show was a fiasco but fun.
About 2 weeks later, I get a letter in the mail from Labatt's apologizing about the show and offering a pass to see Big Sugar play again at the Shaw Conference Centre. This time the beers weren't a dollar a piece :(
Other shows I saw in 1998 include Steve Earle with Buddy and Julie Miller at The Winspear Centre, Mighty Mighty Bosstones with the Pietasters at Dinwoodie Lounge, Edge Fest in Calgary at the Race City Speedway with bands Tea Party,Green Day,Foo Fighters,Sloan and many others, Big Sugar the make up show for the Labatt Blue hangar party this time at the Shaw Conferene Centre, Eric Clapton with Bonnie Raitt at the Coliseum (Bonnie Raitt stole this show), Stompin' Tom Connors at the Shaw Conference Centre, Bob Dylan with Jann Arden at The Coliseum and finally Big Sugar yet again this time with Gov't Mule at the Shaw Conference Centre this was an excellent double bill of dirty rockin' blues.
All and all, not a lot of shows this year, but some damn good stories.
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