Riotous

I just want to keep riding my Riotfest high from the weekend, because weekdays are significantly less fun than spending time in the beautiful outdoors with good friends watching great bands perform!  Who designed this life anyways?  Why can't I do that every day?! ;)

Just a quick shout out about what was so great about my weekend.  And let me clarify that the name of the festival reflects its punk rock roots but it's turned into more of an eclectic mix of artists from all different genres, all with roots in rocking out :)  When I told people I was going to "Riotfest" they seemed scared.  My financial controller told me to have a good time watching "The Curse" - I corrected "it's the CURE!" - "ok.. bye".

The Food
When there isn't a single healthy thing to eat it is 100% acceptable to have ice cream for lunch, pizza for dinner, and beer for hydration on Day 1.  Poutine for dinner, funnel cake for dessert and, again, beer for hydration made up Day 2.  Excellent.  What was that I'd said last week about getting back on the healthy train?  Ok, ok, hold on, I will ;)

Dawn's face full of funnel cake is for sure the best part

The Weather
We had two excellent days of late summer weather.  Cold September didn't disappoint!  After the 40C Friday we'd just expereinced, 23C Saturday and Sunday were more than welcome!  Gorgeous sunshine, clear skies, cool nights (perfect for sweaters, or being shoulder to shoulder with a million sweaty strangers for warmth) - awesome!  The rain on Friday night had left Downsview Park a muddy disaster but at least we all knew that going in and wore shoes we didn't mind having to throw out at the end of the weekend.

The Hijinx
Of course there were some of those.  They included the two hour journey from Liberty Village to Downsview Park (at some point during the weekend I saw something on Google maps that cited the distance between the festival and downtown as only 11 miles which was very upsetting for 2 hours of my life I'm never getting back).  The subway full of teenagers in concert t-shirts and girls in short shorts displaying upper leg tattoos (discreetly coded by Dawn and I as "LTs") was a bit worrying on the way in.  I'm happy to report though that the average age was much closer to 23 than 16 - ya!  I am getting so tired of feeling like a grandmother at concerts.  Though at no moment did I feel more like a grandma than during Metric, when we'd jockeyed hard for a spot near the front and as a result found ourselves surrounded by towering, redwood-like young boys (I asked one how tall he was - 6'5 - and there were four of them), drunken moshpitters (no!!!) one of which kicked me hard in the shin (took everything I had not to kick him back), and the guy who stood so close to Dan they were essentially spooning.

Note Dan is turned sideways to reduce the sexuality of the encounter with this young man

My Best Friend
Just a shout out to Dawn who knew how important seeing The Cure would be for me and shelled out nearly $200 for a ticket so she could come along with me.  She also rocked out and sang along to The Cure even though her knee was killing her from standing all day and she was clearly exhausted.  I hope I was able to make "birthday fest" really fun for her to say thanks for making my summer by joining me at this concert AND letting me sleep in her bed AND letting me sleep in as late as I wanted in the morning.  She's a gem and a half, that one!

I was threatened that I wasn't to show this picture for punishment of death so I cropped her head - what a badass festival goer!  Dawn rocking out to Billy Talent.  

And of course a shout out to Dan who made sure that I had an excellent vantage points for all the bands I wanted to see.  Both Dawn and Dan's line of the weekend was "ya, I've heard OF them". What troopers - best concert buddies ever! :)

The Freaking Bands
I don't even know where to start.  It wasn't just the big names and the closers that were amazing.  It was like everyone was amazing!  We started with Taking Back Sunday - they were great!  AWOLNATION - I like one song (who doesn't love Sail) but found myself just dancing along the whole time their performance had so much energy!  Brand New has fallen off my radar since the days of Sic Transit Gloria.. Glory Fades but it was so great hearing them (and that song! my 22 year old self thought this video was the greatest thing of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3YVKTxTOgU) again even if there was a drunk shirtless guy rolling around on the grass in front of me during the performance and I was alone with him for about 20 minutes while Dawn and Dan got food.....

Death from Above 1979 are another band I like, but of course now love after watching them perform.  The lead singer, in his weird white shorty overalls and no shirt, made fun of Barrie and Orillia and was immediately warmed to my heart.

Death from Above 1979

We checked out Billy Talent next who thankfully played songs from their only good album (first one) that I wanted to sing along to.  Luckily we escaped before Dawn had a chance to do her rendition of "Nothing to Loooooose!!!" (only Katie will understand that reference :)).  We left so we could grab a good spot for The Cure (which was obviously my band of the night) though this meant saying bye to Ryan, my former soccer buddy and neighbour, who I'd been trying to find all day via text and then actually physically looking for at Billy Talent, and then gave up.  Of course he ended up standing exactly right beside me at Billy Talent and it took us at least 10 minutes to notice this.  Haha.

THE CURE WERE UNREAL.  I don't want to be boring and gush and gush but I will just say that Robert Smith is about a million years old and still one of the most talented singers, musicians, performers that I know.  Great energy, hilarious tiny dance moves and played hit after hit including Just Like Heaven, my top favourite song from age 7 through to right now when it still makes my Top 5 Favourite All Time Song List.  Check out my boy, still rocking hard to Just Like Heaven, nearly 30 years later:

That was just Day 1!!  I swear, I'm trying to be brief here :)  Day 2 we came back a little later to save our grandparent feet from another full day of walking/standing.  This meant I got to have brunch with the lovely Nicole at a lovely restaurant downtown so obviously the day was off to a good start (did I mention I also got to sleep in and have a perfectly uninterrupted sleep with no snoring Jeff or crying Bailey? OH MAN good start to the day! ;)).  I also had an unplanned couch nap which was probably a good thing as I'd been so sick all week!  Ok.. so we're back!  Ready to rock!  Dan was sure I'd like the Dropkick Murphys if I liked Great Big Sea but they were a bit too badass for my Celtic heart.  Plus they talked about the Leafs losing to the Bruins in the playoffs in 2013 which actually hurts my heart to think about and was painful to type just now, so they lost major points.. but still rocked out pretty hard.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE were fantastic!

Death Cab - photo by Short Kristyn

Death Cab - photo by Tall Ryan (it's like we were at different shows)

I felt a bit like I was missing a limb watching them without Dave who's been with me all three times I've seen them but Dawn made up for it by turning around at least 10x to exclaim "this song is so Dave Cristo!".  Haha.  I loved Ben's business casual attire while he sang just beautifully and played songs I'd forgotten all about and ones that totally hit the right notes, like Long Division, which I've tributed by listening to 10x in the past three days.  I also dug Codes and Keys (their 2011 album that got lost in the shuffle and I never listened to fully) out of my CD case (grandma alert pt. 3) and listened to it all day today.. simply lovely.  So that was a resurrection of an old love that I am so grateful for!  And frig, this night just kept going!  THE NATIONAL! METRIC! Who I don't even like anymore but put on an amazing show and admittedly made me a bit emotional during the part where the whole audience got to sing/finish Breathing Underwater.  During this show, however, I was touched, kicked, had my ear sung into by the monotone guy, laughing hysterically at the madness and craning my neck over the Sea of Tall for a view - I was not feeling the love of the crowd at the end of this set but at least it makes for our most ridiculous memories of the weekend.

Metric - discernible only by the order these pictures were in ;)

For City and Colour I was happy to watch from the back of the crowd.  Not sure why Dallas slowed down everything so much, and butchered a fave of mine, Coming Home, by Mr. Jonesing the tune of the song so no one could sing along.  I'm coming home, you jerk!  He redeemed himself with a few goodies, capped off by Two Coins which I sang all the way to my car - so he's still in my good books.  Especially that I could just listen to that voice all life long.

Some aggressive nosing out of the parking lot (who parks anywhere but right at the front? not my problem you didn't think of it, assholes!), a cruise along the 407 blasting Transatlanticism and I was home ("'cuz it's too important - to stay the way it's beeeeeee-eeeeen!"). Exhausted but on a total concert high - which I still totally am - can you tell?!

Music is most certainly my drug of choice.