BNL Rocks My World!!

Last night Jason and I went with David and Jennifer to see the Barenaked Ladies on the last night of their cross-Canada tour. I haven't seen BNL live since about 92, whenever it was they were here for their "Gordon" tour. That was an amazing concert experience because we were in the second row at the Arts and Culture Centre and it was so intimate, it felt like having BNL in the living room. Last night's concert was not as amazing as that, but was still quite an impressive show!

Barenaked Ladies are unique in the category of Bands I Like since they are the only mainstream pop band that debuted later than 1990 that I truly enjoy -- my appreciation for pop music mostly ended with the 80s, but BNL has managed to transcend that. Their career has had ups and downs over the last 15 years or so -- there were times we hoped to catch them in concert and their tour was cancelled because they were doing so badly they couldn't afford to come to Newfoundland; there were times they came here and we were doing so badly we couldn't afford to go see them! So last night was like a conjunction of the planets: BNL are riding high and so are we.

Sometimes when you go to a concert for a band you've liked for years it's frustrating because they don't do a lot of their old stuff and you don't really know or care about the new stuff. This wasn't like that -- they did lots of old stuff, going right back to "Gordon" -- we heard "Yoko Ono" and a few others from that first album, and of course they finished with "If I Had a Million Dollars" for an encore. I also really liked most of the new songs even though I hadn't heard them yet. BNL continues to be the most lyrically interesting band I know, an amazing mix of cynicism and innocence, irony and sweetness. I'm not qualified to tell you if they're musically interesting but they're certainly musically enjoyable, to me anyway, so the concert was a total success.

I don't think I've ever been to a concert that had so many Good Causes associated with it -- we were hit up for money for the food bank before we got through the door; there was a table from WorldVision encouraging child sponsorship in developing countries; there was another table featuring eco-friendly products and information from Barenaked Planet (along with some scary laminated pages informing us that virtually everything we'd ever considered putting on or in our bodies was bad for us!) The earnestness was somewhat balanced by the on-stage end-of-tour hijinks, which included three of the Ladies coming out during the opening act wearing only towels and flashing Tomi Swick and his band (they didn't flash the audience, but a friend who was sitting close to the front confirmed that the Barenaked Ones were true to their name!) Lots of laughs and great music, although it will never equal the thrill of sitting in the second row at the ACC in 92 and feeling like I was One With the Band.

Oh! And more excitement today! A local radio station, Coast 101.1, has a brainteaser question every morning called the Coast Conundrum. I always listen on the way to work, always try to figure out the answer, and often try to call in without success. I'm particularly cheesed off when someone calls in, has no idea what the right answer is, and they give them the prize "just for playing!" This morning I knew the answer, I called, and I got through! I got on the air, won the prize, and the DJs told me I Was Smart. (My student Vince, whom I drive to school, was in the car next to me yelling, "Yeah she's smart!" in the background -- and no, by the way, I didn't call while driving, I called while parked in front of my kids' school after dropping them off).

So hey, it's an all-round good day and it would take something pretty drastic to bring me down right now. Let's hope we don't get anything drastic happening today.