Uncle Fester Eludes Me Again

WARNING: BLOG CONTAINS BILE AND MANY SWEAR WORDS

Many of you have been bored sh*tless by my music ramblings on this blog, so apologies. But as an equal number of you have asked about the Cure gig I went to on May 26, here goes...

I had okay seats, but about 23 rows back. Then I entered a contest in the Georgia Straight. I made what turned out to be a well-planned wisecrack and plea about being one of the last-remaining "aging goths" who would be able to buy "a bat-shaped coffin and die happily if she won," and well...erm...won front-row tickets.

That, above, is what Fat Bob looks like now - a mush of Uncle Fester, the Joker and, as one reviewer put it, Sully from Monsters Inc. Yes, I know, terrifying. But that is what the Cure look like from the front bloody row! Imagine this is one of your two favourite bands. You're in a small stadium and in front of you is your idols, butt ugly as they are, but still, your idols. Behind you - EVERYONE else. *Raspberries*

Anyway, I thought this year was going to be THE year that I get to meet Robert Smith. Finally. I'd put in photo requests with the promoter, interview requests with the record company and bribed a good mate of a mate (who was doing their bleedin' lights) with beer, to get me backstage. Did any come through? PAH. I guess I cashed in my good karma chips when I got the front-row seats. Shouldn't complain, now should I? WAHHHHHH!

It was the Rock Devil's way of saying: "Mikala, if you meet Robert Smith, that'll be it. Nothing to aspire to. No sense of purpose. He's avoided you for 23 years. Sorry, mate, but he'll only let you down 'cos he's fat and hairy and awkward and probably smells of wee now. So here, as a consolation prize, take these front-row tickets. Off with ye."

So me and Beth grinned like gurnsome fools from the front row as they played for THREE hours. A superb show, despite Robert with a flu. Every little movement of Robert's wonderful awkwardness captured on my shit little camera (279 photos taken - 10 useable).

Ecstatic after the triumphant event, I even stood at the back bloody door, in the cold, for 2.5 hours, hoping upon hope, to finally meet Robert Smith.

"Hello my name is Mikala, and I'm a f(cking idiot."

I did meet the drummer Jason (yeah, but he's the drummer), and was lied to and truthed to by various roadies (nice roadie told me the truth that Bob was still inside at 1.30am and gave me all his Canadian change, a guitar pick of Porl's, and Graham - the lighting guy - gave me a stack of old set lists). I hung out with kids half my age - and a few oldsters, too. One preggers woman actually stayed until 1am - I was secretly hoping she'd say to Robert: "are you my baby daddy?"

One of the mini-pops I was chatting with trundled off eventually, with some uber-fanatical US fans, and took up stalking Robert at this other door, way around the corner from where I was. I did not know this. They clearly had some sort of goth homing device that I'd long since lost when I got a mortgage.

I thought she'd left. I realized she hadn't, when at 2am, she came running around the corner squealing that she'd just met Robert Smith, had the photo and autograph to prove it, and sorry she didn't come get me earlier but she didn't want to chance missing him. F*cker comes out a different door cos he's scared of six fans? Grrrrrrr. Nice one, fatty! And screw you babygoth!

I'd lost my touch and my final attempt at meeting Robert Smith. But on the plus side, I've recently regained some of scruples and vow never to stand outside a backdoor in the cold waiting for a band again - unless it's for John Taylor.

Or unless I'm walking out of that backdoor - with the band. :-)

My Wings Are Like A Shield of Steel!

Thing to cross off my never-having-done-this-before list: travel by floatplane.

Had a work orientation day in Victoria on Tuesday. The boss let me and a colleague go up a day before so we wouldn't have to get an arse-crack-of-dawn flight, and we flew by Harbour Air. Ie, five-minute-walk from office to Vancouver's downtown harbour, then 35min float plane journey over Stanley Park and Lion's Gate Bridge, past the sand flats, over lush islands, before descending in quite a James-Bondy sort of way right into the water of Victoria's quaint and picturesqwee harbour. Monday afternoon was spent at the TBC Victoria head office, then shopping on the fab little Johnston St, followed by a lovely fish bouillabaise at a cool Vic resto and night in a VERY awesome boutique hotel. Again, I say this: my job rocks.En route, I saw an eagle below, and a porpoise. BC's fucking awesome.

So why aren't any of you visiting this summer?