The sounds of summer

Well, thus concludes my three nights of awesome music at Harbourfront. Thursday night I didn't have anything planned so I picked up a last minute ticket to see Sarah Harmer. It turned out to be an absolutely beautiful night and since it was a ticketed event everything was very mellow and orderly, which isn't usually the case in the bandshell there.--It was packed but didn't feel so...it was very nice. She had shimmery fabric draped from the roof and twinkle lights all over the place. Since we were down by the water she kept a pretty consistant water/nature theme and the lights guy projected wave-like images on the back of the stage. Though I do love her, for some reason Sarah Harmer isn't someone that I can see over and over again. But I think enough time had gone by that I was ready to see her again. She was very laid back and happy, did all the hits, and a few I'd never heard before believe it or not. I haven't heard her new CD yet (I picked it up that night) so I think they must have been from that. However, I don't think she played Basement Apartment or Hideout=(. I suppose she can't play them everytime, but I thought they were pretty solid staples at this point. She might've played them when I was in the bathroom, TWICE...teach me to drink beer, blah! but I don't think so.

...Did anyone else know she could drum? At one point during the set she went and sat down in the back and at first I didn't see the small drum kit and wondered why she was just sitting there. But then she started to drum while singing and made jokes about the drummer from the opening band waiting in the wings in case she messed up. But I thought she was pretty impressive.

The only weird thing about the night was for the first time I didn't recognize anyone in her band...or anyone in the hipster audience either.

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Friday night was the beginning of the "From the Peg!" Festival, which featured several artists from Winnipeg. We went down to see The Duhks, who I hadn't heard of but were guaranteed by Kyla to be good. They definitely didn't disappoint. They're kind of tradional folk (fiddles, banjo, drums guitar) fused with a contemporary sound. They kind of reminded me of The Paperboys without the Spanish stuff. They did a lot of covers (Sting & Tracy Chapman) a few that were written for them (one by the Mammals) and then several interesting instrumental pieces that seemed to be arranged by the fiddle player. I was particuarly impressed with the guitarist...not only was he cute *hehe* but he was an extremely strong guitar player. Nothing particularly fancy per se, he just struck me as very good. My only real criticism was that the lead singer was clearly fronting the band but each time they did an instrumental piece she left the stage. It was weird, it sort of wrecked the continuity of the set I found.

For some reason there were people giving out paper Burton Cummings masks too. It was very bizarre. I mean yeah, the Guess Who are from Winnipeg...but it's not like they were there or anything=p.

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Saturday night topped them all though. Sarah Harmer was nice and all. But she was still $35! Now, you just can't top a two hour FREE Weakerthans set with a 7 song encore. SOO GOOD!!!! If it wasn't for the stupid indie kids it would've been flawless. We got there three hours early and secured a great spot in the front row, but as soon as the Waking Eyes went on at 8 all the oblivious, inconsiderate losers started filling the miniscule space between the seats and the barrier and stood right in front of us...OY, SO RUDE!! Luckily we didn't mind just listening to the Waking Eyes but when more little idiots tried to cram themselves into the space before the Weakerthans went on, that's where we drew the line. We reamed a couple guys out who jumped over the benches from like 5 rows back back to try and cram themselves into the already non-existent space...which had gotten even smaller when everyone crowded under during the brief downpour. Eventually we just got security to let me parallel park right up against the barrier. My friends had to stand, which sucked after waiting for 3 hours, but we had a great view anyway. Needless to say we were extremely unimpressed with the lack of crowd control...geeze! It made no sense cuz the seats were hardly jam packed and there is a perfect view from the back of the venue. There was no reason for them to allow that.

It was a seriously awesome show though. They did EVERYTHING but the best part was that they opened their "From the Peg!" set with One Great City. It was so much fun to yell out "I HATE WINNIPEG!" after hearing everybody gush about how great it was for two days.=) I'm still not quite up to snuff with all the words to every song yet and I don't know all the titles either, but, wow! They did almost everything off of Reconstruction Site, including Plea for a Cat Named Virtue, yay!! and a few older ones that I didn't really know. John did a very cool Propaghandi cover that I would love to hear the original of. It had excellent lyrics. I'm always so impressed by the Weakerthans lyrics...they're really phenomenal. Poetic, with a contemporary twist.

They said something about October as they were leaving the stage but I didn't hear if it was an album or a tour. Hopefully both.

...I got a T-shirt with the Cat Named Virtue on it...cute!=).

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...On a bit of a random note, what is with toddlers with squeaky feet? Is it some sort of new incentive to get your children to learn to walk or something. Today I saw the second child that I've seen with shoes that were kind of like squeaky toys. Everytime she took a step it sounded like she stepped on the dog's chew toy. I don't know about you, but I think I'd find that kind of annoying if nothing else.

I went for a picnic with my dad in the wildlife sanctuary over by the Humber Bay where he lives. I had no idea there was so much country in the city there. We sat by the water and watched the boats, fed the many different types of birds...ducks (including a mother duck and her 5 cute babies), geese, starlings, swans, gulls etc. Most of the time you can't see anything but water and wildflowers...not a trace of the city, even though it's only over the trees. The best part though was that on the way back we saw a white heron and a BEAVER!!! There is a HUGE beaver dam in the river and we saw the beaver having a lovely old time swimming around and chewing on a stick. I've seen many a beaver dam up at the cottage, but I don't think I've ever seen a real live beaver. I never thought I'd see one right smack in the middle of the city.

There was also this really funny older man wearing a speedo, with his cell phone clipped to it who was literally strutting up and down the shore. It was very funny=p...and very weird.