A Monumental Evening

Last night was one of those nights in which you get some much jam-packed goodness out of it, you can't believe it's a Monday.

Or you can, when you wake up on Tuesday morning after three hours of sleep and go into work with a hangover.

Oh, but it was worth it.

First off, I got home from work to discover my three essays had arrived.

Yup, the ones that I wrote last Monday and Tuesday night, a mad dash scramble about historical crap which I learned about the day of. Or actually, during the essay.

The first essay (which was actually the last one I worked on), I got 65% on. According to Ross, this is amazing because the teacher's comments on the essay state that I didn't even answer the question. Yet, I still got 65%.

The second essay, I got 87%.

And the third essay, I got 90%.

90% on a history essay (The French Revolution was a Victory for the Aristocracy: Discuss) in which I wrote in two hours on material I read at the same time I was writing it.

See, why do things ahead of time if you can make zero effort and procrastionation work for you? This only strengthens my belief in procrastination. Screw it God, if you don't want me to keep doing it, then why keep rewarding me?

So that was nice. A nice start to an awesome evening: Ross and I were off to see Damien Rice.

Last week I checked his website to see if by chance he was coming to Vancouver and low and behold, he was. In a week! I snapped up a pair of tickets and started counting the days till I could hear a live version of "Blower's Daughter."

We had a few beers before the concert (dieting be damed - OK, it was Coors Light. And I HAD gotten up at 7 that morning to put in a jog before work, if you can believe it) so we were nicely toasted by the time we got to the theatre. Then we settled into our seats and got ready for some pretty and depressing music.

And this is where Damien surprised. He rocked our socks off. Yes, there were a few sweet ballads - including "Amie" as part of the encore, performed by only Damien and his guitar, no mic...brilliant. And a few tumoltous piano songs ("accidental babies"). But the majority his songs he totally rocked complete with flashing lights, driving guitar and angst-filled wailing.

Up there with Coldplay, Damien was one of the best concerts ever. He was dead-on, one of those artists who sounded exactly like he is on the album albeit better because being live it had that extra kick.

However, this wasn't just any other ordinary concert. There was a reason why I was able to get tickets to this show - the hockey game was on, thus the whole city was either at the game, or were watching it at a bar.

At GM Place, the Vancouver Canucks were in game 7 against the Dallas Stars - a home game. I totally thought the Canucks were going to lose as they were losing by the time we got to the theatre and well, I always say "expect the worst." But during the concert, you couldn't help but notice the glow from people's phones - they werent taking pictures of Damien, but checking the scores of the game.

Then slowly, one person would do a silent cheer. They would wave the score with their fingers and mouth "we won" to the next person. Pretty soon the audience was abuzz and buy the time the song ended, people started hooting and hollering and cheering. While I am sure some of it was for Damien, it was also for the Canucks clinching the 1st round of the playoffs. Um, or something like that.

During a break Damien commented on how the venue wasn't nearly as full and that the front few rows were empty. Someone yelled out "That's because everyone is at the hockey game"
"Yeah," said Damien, "and how are the Canucks doing?"

"We won!" someone cried out and there was cheering for about 2 minutes.

"Well, lucky for you people, the people who are missing this because they are at the game - well, you can take their seats."

There was suddenly a mad dash as people in the orchestra were making a mad dash to the front. I'm sure the ushers were really happy with the seat-switching, but hey, it's Damien's concert, if he wants us to have better seats then we are going to take him on it.

He was also a total performer - someone yelled out the song "Rootless Tree" and Damien asked, "Do you want me to play it on guitar or piano?" What a charmer that Irish man is - totally obliged our hockey crazed crowd AND took a random request.

But back to the hockey. The concert let out at 10ish and even though it had been over an hour since they won, the streets were a riot. Ross and I plunked ourselves down on the corner of Robson and Homer (Robson being "the street" of downtown) on a bar patio and watched, amazed, at the jubilent celebrations.



Cars drove past, waving canucks flags, people were honking non-stop - imagine horns blaring from hundreds of cars for hours and hours. Random people were hugging on the street, people were shouting, cheering, dancing in the streets. 500 people overtook the traffic at the corner of Robson and Burrard. It was nuts and made me quite proud to be Canadian. I had no clue we got so worked up over hockey, and even though I am not a fan myself, it was absolutely infectuous.

And we aren't even in the finals yet. Good Lord, imagine if we won*?

Finally, at 2 AM Ross and I stumbled back to my place where I managed to cap off the evening with an earth-shattering event.

For the first time in 15 months of dating...."it" happened.

That's right.

I farted.

Yes, I have been the girlfriend who has never broke wind in front of her boyfriend, much to his dismay (because apparently that's unatural). That's not to say I don't cuz I am quite a stinky girl, but only alone. However, last night out it came. Luckily, I was on the other side of the room.

The look on Ross's face was pure shock.

"What was that?"

He didn't even believe it when I told him. I think he was actually happy it happened, if not amazed, even though it meant my untarnished image (aside from the constant burping) is gone forever. One fart and there goes my 15 months of ladylike restraint.



BTW - If you don't know Damien, but like lyrical, haunting music ala David Grey, Coldplay, etc. please go download Damien Rice's "Blower's Daughter."

And there have been interesting (re: sucky) developments at my work - I'll fill you in later this week.

*I know what happens when we lose. We lost the cup in the final game in 1994 and we had the cities biggest riot. Angry hockey fans practically burnt downtown to the ground.

Addendum: Because no one seems to know who Damien Rice is (seriously, I've had like ten people ask) I am going to post what I think is his best song and video - The Blower's Daughter, from Closer.