Have you ever been to a concert and thought to yourself: "What the hell am I doing here? What a waste of money! I'm not even having fun..."?

I have.



I've also been to a few concerts where, for whatever reason, I was completely swept away by the music and the performance and loved every minute I was there. Most recently, I went to see the Silversun Pickups at a small venue concert held at Sound Academy (formerly known as The Docks, at Polson Pier in Toronto), and Metric at the Molson Amphitheatre on the Lakeshore. These were two of the best concerts I have ever been to. But what makes a concert so good? Especially a rock concert like the two I just mentioned. It's not like they have a massive production of dancers and choreography to compensate for the undeniable truth: that you are just watching a few people sing and play instruments for a couple hours, singing the same songs that you already burned on a CD for free. What the hell... if you wanted to listen to their music you could have just done it at home; you could have skipped the songs you don't like and listened to it as loudly or softly as you wanted. Best of all, you could have done it while multitasking: the gym, homework, gardening, making love, whatever floats your boat...

So why pay a boatload of money to orchestrate the perfect night to go and watch these people bopping on a stage, trying desperately (and often succeeding) to get the crowd excited and dancing by using corny lines like: "What's up Toronto!!?!?!?" - that one ALWAYS works. I've decided to write a blog about what makes ME like a concert...




1. Knowing the majority of the songs helps SO much.


It's weird because there are some bands that have never produced a track I don't like (i.e. Metric) however, even Metric is capable of making me stand still in awe when they play a song I don't know. How is this possible? If I like it, why shouldn't I enjoy it and the concert? Well... I do. But I also have come to realize that it's important to recognize the songs for another reason. Comfort. When we listen to this band's music while multitasking all day long - working, driving, exercising, gardening, lovemaking, hanging out with friends, whatever the case may be - we associate memories and, more importantly, feelings with these sounds. The music produces a nostalgic feeling of comfort and well-being (or possibly of connection an dunderstanding of bad times), it recreates itself in our lifeforce as a collage of our OWN lives (and nobody else's). Why? Because this band plays the songs that narrate the storyline of certain special and important segments of your life. When I was younger I used to fall asleep every night listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers every night for like a year. Now, anytime I hear a track off of that album I get excited. Those were the songs that narrated the soundtrack of my dreams, of my thoughts, of the culmination of my days' events. No matter what happened each day, whether I was happy, sad, curious, confused, it would always end up the same way:

"Scar tissue that I wish you saw, sarcastic Mr. Know-It-All. Close your eyes and I'll kiss you 'cause, with the birds I'll shareeee"


2. Having a drink or two gets you in the mood.

"Not healthy," you say! "I don't need alcohol to have fun," you say! I don't care what YOU say. This is about me, remember? Ok.. so alcoholic beverages help. Why, you ask? Well, it continues along the theme of comfort. In case you haven't noticed, you will struggle a great deal to have fun if you are not comfortable... it's like one of those "Duh!" rules of life. So if you go to a concert, and everyone around you is holding a really expensive beer due to overpricing at event venues, and they are all smiling and dancing, and you are there, stiff as a board, bending your knees off-tune, half smiling, half wasting your time noticing all the things you really wish you weren't noticing: like how ugly her shoes are and how tall the guy in front of you is, or the trickle of sweat tickling the outside of your left ear lobe.... well then how can you feel the music? Then you'll move on to watching the singer walking up and down stage trying to hype up the crowd and you will ask yourself why the hell it's working... how stupid does that dude look, doing what he's doing up there. Yeah "what's up Toronto?"... "nothing.... just play, idiot." Well sure! There's the spirit. You're really gonna love the concert now.... Instead, I suggest you have a drink... maybe two. Now you're smiling like everyone else, you're not worried about her shoes or his height and you just answered the stupid singer with a huge WOOOO!!!! Now your blood is pumping, you're not feeling awkward, now you're here to party.. and wow, that bass player is good. See... you need to FEEL the experience... you're not there to watch. You're there to feel!


3. Sing along.


Learn the words and sing the songs. Sing them as loud as you want.... no one can really hear you anyways. Feel the words, allow yourself to connect to the emotions that they bring up on you. The concert is an interactive event, it is not a show. We must rid ourselves of the misconception that we are going to a concert so that we can see celebrities. Real music artists are not really celebrities - they are poets, thinkers, dreamers, musicians, but most importantly, they are people. Just like you, just like me. Would you pay $50 plus service charges to go see me stand on a stage? Didn't think so. So you need to go there to embrace the experience, and you need to make it interactive. You need to let loose, forget your inhibitions, ignore who could be watching or judging you, and participate.



4. Talk to people around you.

Burst out of this modern-day North American phenomenon of restriction. Don't forget that we are all human and we are all at the concert for very similar reasons. We are all there to have fun. Make friends! People won't think you're a weirdo if you flash a friendly smile and make a funny comment during the show. Who cares if you never see any of them again, make sure they know you are enjoying yourself and that they should be too. This is part of making the experience interactive. Going to a concert should be about communal gathering, not about worshipping the musicians in silence as if it were a church. As an extension of this rule, we should strive to be more friendly with eachother ALL the time... not just at concerts where it's relatively easy to be.

After you've given each band member an appropriate amount of time and attention -- you've marvelled at the skill of the drummer and the bassist, you've enjoyed the different pitches of the singer's voice and how it meshes with the instuments brilliantly, you've been amazed by the guitar player's solos, you've been mezmerized by the keyboard and whatever other instrument finds itself cluttered in front of you... close your eyes. Feel how each piece of the ensemble comes together almost effortlessly after all the practice the band has had together. Think to yourself how music is born and how if each person on the stage were to stop... so would the music. Embrace the collaborative effort and think about how you feel as you are there. Once you are truly relaxed and comfortable, there will be no better feeling at that time than to just close your eyes and feel the music.

I may not have a clue what I'm talking about, considering I knew little about what the protestors wanted before going downtown Toronto Saturday, June 26 to see them protest, but I can tell you what I saw and it might not be what you expect.

I was in the middle of the front line of protestors who were barricaded by the police on Spadina, just south of Quuen, as they attempted to make their way to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to protest at around 2:30 pm yesterday. The protestors were getting agitated by the police and made claims such as "Tell me what a police state looks like? THIS IS WHAT A POLICE STATE LOOKS LIKE!" and other claims to their rights and freedoms and how the police were doing something that was not morally right and against the will of our Charter by refusing them passageway to the site of the of Summit. I stayed there for a short period of time and then decided to turn back and see what else was going on, as other protestors paraded back to Queen's park. Just as I was coming back into the intersection, I witnessed hundreds of black-clad people running Eastbound through Queen. When a large group of people begins to run like this in the middle of an area where people are otherwise only parading slowly or standing still, it is quite an attention-grabber. My friend and I became immediately interested and began to run with them, just to see where they were going. I referred to them as ninjas--because that's what they looked like to me, faces covered and entirely clothed in black.

We ran about 200 metres before our first big shock of the day. No more then 10 metres ahead of us, a Police officer in his cruiser was making his way down Queen st., when on-coming anarchist ninjas jumped up on his car and smashed the windshield as he was driving. He immediately braked, jumped out and escaped as the anarchists smashed the headlights, the windows, the sideview mirrors and dented the hood using bats and sticks. I was frightened and repeated to my friend more than a couple times that we should go before the police showed up and tear-gassed the crowd. My friend, the brave one, disagreed. He ordered me to march onwards with the ninjas and so we did. Within minutes we witnessed them break windows on a Scotiabank and a Starbucks coffee house. It soon became clear that they had specific targets in mind and had gone about hitting them in a strategic fashion. But where were the police? Where were those triple fortified lines of riot police with their shields and batons and intimidating phalanx positions? We marched onwards. Within every 100 metres or so, another glass window pane along the side of the street had been smashed open with bricks, flying hammers and wrenches, chairs, newspaper boxes... anything they could get their hands on. They were ruthless and reckless, and I was increasingly becoming paranoid by the prospect of the police coming to take care of the problem. But they never came...

We reached University and turned right. A BMO Branch was smashed open opposite a glass encasing housing a poster of Cristiano Ronaldo in underwear, which had also been attacked. Up ahead, someone screamed. Some more cracking glass could be heard and then the whole crowd turned and ran away... ran past me, backtracking at full speed. So we followed, scared for our lives... the police had FINALLY arrived (we thought)... we ran as fast as we could... for about 30 seconds, before realizing there was no reason to run. There was no police. Actually I lied... there was... but they ran away, apparently. We all turned around again and plowed further. When I got to the intersection up ahead I saw that another police car had been trampled, right in the middle of the intersection, and I was just in time to see a ninja with a lit piece of something, throw it into the broken-open driver side window and torch the car. Within minutes the vehicle was engulfed in flames. The smashed police cruiser behind the first one (yes, there were two this time) soon caught fire as well. I couldn't believe my eyes. Behind me, a police line formed. As the vehicle's flames picked up, the police backed up, allowing us to escape the blaze. We turned left on Yonge and ran for half a block. The police watched. I wondered what it was going to take for them to take action. They continued to do nothing.

The Toronto tourist information kiosk was smashed right in front of me at Yonge & Dundas Square. Windows lining the side of the Eaton centre weren't immune either. Footlocker uses some strong class, FYI... it didn't break despite numerous attempts from the rabid ninjas. A jeweller's glass was shattered and he was robbed. I didn't like that. The Bell Store was also smashed open. When some civillian bystanders decided to make good of the situation and jump in to loot it, another civilian vigilante (who was, of course 8 times bigger than the two little thieves) wrestled both to the ground simultaneously and told them to get lost... that the protest was not about stealing. I admired this. Other moments of brilliance included the way the mob worked together to create space for an innocent motorist who had mistakenly been stranded on Yonge as the mob progressed. Together they helped the motorist turn the car around and leave. Then they all cheered together. Clearly, the vandalism was not about chaos and absolute destruction. There was a clear plan and purpose - despite what the media and the government will have you believe.

The events of the day culminated back at Quuen's Park, where the police finally caught up to us and cornered us, in a painfully slow process where they arrived about 50 at a time and advanced in straight lines to surround us. We had ample time to escape if we wanted to. By now, we had been marching the streets for at least a couple of hours. The anarchists had left a huge trail of glass behind them and had proven their point that the 1.1 billion dollars spent on the G20 - including police - was in fact a complete waste. Where was the police as the anarchists chanted: "Who's streets? OUR STREETS!!!" for two hours and burned police cars and smashed windows at the POLICE STATION ITSELF. Even more painful to me, was that as the police sloooooooowly encircled us at Queen's Park, the anarchist ninjas formed huddles and changed their clothes. They came out of the huddles dressed like civillians and walked away innocently. I did not see a single one of them get arrested. Not one.

I also was able to leave this area with relative ease, despite a couple of scares when the police deployed their intimidation tactics to get the protestors to back down. We walked all the way back to the Queen and Spadina intersection, and went back to see that a second Police car had been smashed open right next to the first one I explained in this post. A man sat on top of this second cruiser, and we got there on time to see him light a piece of paper and tuck it under the breast of his blazer. His clothes started to smoke and once it became unbearably hot for this stoner, he retrieved the burning paper and dropped it on the hood of the car, where he stood. Unwittingly, however, it seems he dropped part of the burning paper INSIDE the car, where it ignited something inside. As he danced on the hood, he removed his jacket, shirt, and belt... until his pants were about to fall off. Then he realized that the car had caught fire, so he jumped off, grabbed a picket sign, opened the passenger door and stuck his torso inside to try and beat out the fire using the sign. He didn't realize that all this allowed him to do was actually stimulate the fire by fanning it and before long the smoke overwhelmed him. He ripped his half naked body out of the car and began throwing up. As he did, the car was overcome by flames. People crowded around to take pictures of the car and the half naked psycho dragged himself around, screaming "BACK OFF, THIS THING IS GONNA BLOW." People laughed at him and stayed there, taking pictures. What amazed me is that there were over 2000 police officers closing in on protestors up in Queen's Park... and not a single one here on Queen Street where civillians encircled a burning police car. Where was the police?

Let's get talking about bright sun-shiny days and saltwater fish. The warmth of that association is enough to make even the most frigid of ice queens thaw out a smile. I was in Cuba for a week, about a week ago. I'm well aware that the hypocrisy in that venture merits a series of blogposts but I have chosen to tackle a happy topic here and not dwell on the inconsistencies of human nature. Although the trip itself provided me with many things I could comment on, it's a thought that only struck me yesterday that really got me thinking. I'd like to think it was spurred on by my recent return to a place of inconspicuous intermingling between ultimate happiness and infinite pain -- the airport.

I randomly pictured going to the airport one day--a day when I am irreperably bored--and just standing at the gates of the arrivals and watching the people for a few hours. Although this makes me sound rather more like a creeper than the innocent and harmless daydreamer that I so desperately pose to be, I urge you to follow along in my reasoning. The airport seems to be quite straight forward. It is none other than a massive series of buildings encircled by a spaghetti bowl of tangled asphalt. We go there for a limited variety of reasons: We are either employed by one of the companies that are situated there or we are somehow related to an act of travel. We could, in fact, be the travellers -- leaving or returning from a place far enough that driving seems out of the question. We could, instead, be assisting a traveller by being their chauffeur for the day. The latter role is what interests me. Are you aware that upon accepting this responsibility - that of being the last familiar face the traveller sees before embarking on their adventure - we are the bridge between home and the unknown for that person? Have you ever given thought to how important you are for the person who is departing? And likewise I urge you to consider what your face means to the person who is arriving. You are symbolic. You are the first real sign of home, of comfort, of love and care for the returning explorer. Your job is much more important than that of simply being a chauffeur.

Allow me to elaborate through a spontaneous narrative of a typical scenario in front of the gates of arrival in any given airport, on any given day, at any given time. As you read, slow down and take the time to visualize and understand what each word means to you, the emotions it conveys, and the way you are affected by it through your own memories and characteristics.

An airport terminal is like a beehive for emotions and feelings -- constantly buzzing with activity and saturated with the very essence of life for those who interact with it. The airport houses the anticipation, the shock, the anxiety, the regret, the relief, the love, the jealousy, the surprise, the tears, the sweat, the exotic smells, the repulsive odours, the tans, the burns, the new clothing, the bright colours, the bags, the smiles, the frowns, the worries, the confusion, the voices, the moans, the whispers, the thoughts.... how many thoughts? what kind of thoughts? expectations? wonder? amazement? longing... longing for a person, longing for a home, for a pillow, for good food, for friendship, for comfort, for the next vacation, for what they lost on this one.

There is something revealing about watching a person who is waiting for an arrival at the airport. A man waits, emotionless, quiet. His eyes glimmer with the essence of one who is in expectation, although it is impossible to tell if he is worried, calm, or hiding something more explosive. Interesting interpretation of an emotion, I tell myself, seeing that we are dealing with an airport during terrorist times. The man waits, and waits. He paces back and forth but ultimately settles in his rightful (and infinitely temporary) place, leaning against a large semi-decorative pole that supports the entire structure. His arms are crossed, he fidgets. The doors flutter open again and again, but those who come through mean nothing to the man. He waits.

Beside the man there is a child playing with a toy airplane. The toy was likely handed down over at least a couple of generations. Several stickers have peeled off the surface and the silver paintjob looks more like a few splatters of silver paint on dull grey plastic. The wear of time has reduced it so. The child makes jet engine noises, or at least what he thinks they should sound like. "GUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...........VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVUUUUUUU" He steps six steps right but eight left; he makes little progress. As he tinkers innocently he enters the subconscious imagination of all the adults in his vicinity. There is some tender annoyance with the child but no one addresses it except his painfully agitated mother, whom experiences a boatload of heart palpitations during times of extreme stress and does not deal well with anxiety. Her blue eyes, unlike the man's, are wide, bright, and glossy. They are full of worry, of hope, of expired patience - they are contrasted with a poorly done make-up job, which intended to use eye shadow to help bring out her eyes, but instead serve to make her entire face seem puffy and tired. She scolds the child in order to distract herself, but does do distractedly and decidedly ineffectively. The child senses her half-hearted concern for public peace and continues to fly his jet through the clouds of time.

The man coughs, the woman looks up at him. She doesn't care that he coughed. She is bored. Worried and bored. Not a good combination as she senses her heart beating at a semi-irregular pace. She waits.

Like the man, the woman, and the child, there are 226 people waiting for arrivals at any given time in this stretch of my imagination, in this fictional terminal, in this temporary image of a reality taken for granted. As each arrival comes through the door, a heart skips a beat, a smile is inevitable, a relief is reached, an agitation is calmed, a story has begun where another one has ended. The power we all have is immense when we open those doors and walk through the gates to come home; to go away.

The airport is not a port of travel, it is a theatre of emotion. A place we go to feel, to be felt. To smile, to laugh. The airport is a runway for the runaway heart. If you have never travelled, if you have never gone to greet an arriving traveller, you have missed out on a significant part of your emotional self. This, I argue, is a large part of the beauty of going on vacation and should never be taken for granted.