Favorite Shows Of 2000

New decade, another round of concerts, although the year 2000 wasn't the best for shows here in Edmonton, I still managed to get out to a few and have some stories that go with them.
May 2nd was The Violent Femmes with then unknown (Hawksley Workman) unknown to me anyways. This show was the The Shaw Conference Centre, but a set up I had never seen before, and I have been to a few shows at this venue. It was a small set up with maybe one section open, if you have ever been to Shaw Centre, you may know what I mean. Anyways, it was small and only maybe 900 people there. Hawksley opened, and at the time I wasn't all that impressed with him. I now am a fan of him, but at the time, I was there for the Femmes. Violent Femmes ended up coming on late, but it was well worth the wait. They put on an excellent show and played for close to 2 hours. Good time was had by all. I went to this show with A Bomb.

Another very memorable show for me this year was Ween in Vancouver at the Vogue Theatre on June 22nd. This was my first time seeing them live, which was big deal to me, cause to this day, they are still one of my all time favorite bands. What a fuckin' show it was too, it was just them, as it always is nowadays, an evening with Ween. I had a great buzz on for this show and had an awesome time. The Vogue Theatre is, well, a theatre,(holding about 1000 people maybe) all sitting, which was fine by me. Like I say, had a good buzz on, so I sat in the last row of the theatre, which actually aren't bad seats at this venue. I sat up there and tripped out for 3 hours, what a show. They went into a big jam thingy, where it seemed, it was the cue to go get drinks, and I swear, everyone did. Needless to say, the crowd drank the bar dry, I got some booze, I was lucky, but it was dry soon after. At one point in the show I thought Deaner was singing thru the Stanley Cup, it was just a silver megaphone, but hell to me at the time I though it looked like The Cup. Ya, I was a little inebriated!!!! What a great time that show was, the crowd outside the venue before they let us in was quite interesting and fun too, lots of doobies making the rounds and a few drinks being drunk.

On July 6th I made the trip to Calgary for the Warped Tour (first time the tour had been in Cowtown) to hang with my brother and checkout the festival. The Warped Tour of 2000 actually had quite a good line up. Some of the bands I wanted to checkout and did see were, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Hot Water Music, Snapcase, Green Day, Long Beach Dub All Stars whom were fucking amazing, Supersuckers which unfortunatelly cancelled, couldn't get across the border.
They festivities started early, and thank goodness my bro,Liz and I were there early. We all had passes for the show cause my brother and I did street team stuff for BYO Records at the time. We were able to park in the VIP section which was right behind the main stages, which was nice cause then I could sneak off to Liz's car to have a quick beer whenever I wanted,sweet!!!
The first two bands of the day back to back were Snapcase and then Hot Water Music, which was the main reason my brother wanted to go, and wow, fucking amazing and tense hardcore music. I wasn't really into Hot Water Music at the time, but I sure was after seeing them play live, and Snapcase who I had been listening to for a short time were as amazing as HWM. Sure was a nice heavy way to start the day. Thanks Citrus for turning me onto such amazing music. All and all a really good time was had by all.


Then on July 20th I got to see KISS yet again for my fourth time in a matter of 3 years at The Skyreach Centre (Coliseum) and what a story this show ended up being, not so much the show itself, but what happened before the big show.
This KISS show was at the same time as the exhibition (Klondike Days) so with a ticket you got into Klondike Days free. Well, the day started with work of course, but at the time I had an excellent job, where we were able to drink and smoke all day, ya, like I say an excellent job,lol. So one of my co-workers (Psycho) and well actually all of us at work were drinking having a good time at work no less. It was a slow day at work so my buddy Psycho and I decided and got permission to leave early (2pm) and go to the grounds of K-Days and have a few more drinks before the show. Psycho wasn't going to the show, but decided to hang out with me before I went to the show. So we picked up a six pack and drank that on the way to the grounds and parked and had a few more in the parking lot. As you can imagine we were both pretty lit up by the time we entered the exhibition grounds. This is when the fun really started. So we get to the entrance gates to the grounds, of course I have my KISS ticket which entitles me to free entrance. Well, Psycho just walks right through the gate and keeps walking, while the gate keeper stops me and asks for our tickets, I show him mine, which is cool, but then I start getting hassled about my friend who just walked in. I told the guy, not my problem and I am not paying his way, shit out of luck buddy. The guy should have stopped him, and by now, he is long gome in the crowd, ha, one free entrance,lol. So, I catch up to psycho and we have a good laugh, but now I am really wondering what is going to be in store for us the rest of the afternoon. Well, sure enough, lots more!!!!
Now we are wandering the grounds, drinking some skunky warm draft and having a good time. He decides he is going to go play a few games, while I go gamble and some of the roulette tables. When all of a sudden I hear a commotion, I look back from the table and see Psycho walking quick towards me, I leave the table and hook up with him, when he says, " we have to split up" so we each go our own way, well as quick as that happended all of a sudden there are four cops that came out of nowhere, 2 on me and 2 on him. They quickly tackled him and cuffed him while the other 2 pigs questioned me and gave me a hard time, although I hadn't done fuck all. As the pigs are bothering me, I am watching them slam Psycho to the ground, face down, hands cuffed behind his back, when a pig slams his knee into the back of his head on the concrete splitting his forhead open (for 7 stitches), blood everyhwere. So I start asking the pigs bugging me for there badge numbers, cause this isn't right. I was told to shut the fuck up and mind my own buisness or I was going to the slammer with him ( for public drunkness). Well, needless to say, I did just that, shut up and they let me go, as I watched them cart him away bleeding allover the place.
I later found out from Psycho, that what had happened is the carnival woker had cheated him out of a prize, so he popped him in the face and broke his glasses. Hence, the pigs being all over him, still it was needless to slam him into the concrete when he was already cuffed and by then 4 pigs all around him. Yup, it was a wacky afternoon. That put a damper on the rest of the day and night, but the KISS show still kicked ass. But that was the highlight of that KISS concert lol,Ted Nugent and Skid Row opened for this show, Ted was good but way too loud, you never knew what song he was playing til half way through, and Skid Row I missed. Good times!!!!!


Other shows I saw in 2000 were Sloan with Danko Jones (Danko kicked ass) at The Golden Garter, Punk o Rama with Dropkick Murphys,The Bouncing Souls,The Dwarves and The Distillers, Motorhead with Nashville Pussy and Speedealer at the Agricon Hall A, Wide Mouth Mason at K Days, Wilco and Steve Earle at The Folk Fest, Mighty Mighty Bosstones with The Gadjits at The Golden Garter, The Misfits at Red's, Danko Jones and Trciky Woo at The Urban Lounge and finally Gordie Johnson and Kelly Hoppe of Big Sugar playing an all acoustic show at The Myer Horowitz Theatre which was an excellent show too. Not a lot of shows this year, but some good ones. Good times!!!