1980 - Something

Picture it.

The Christmas mixed tape is playing on the home stereo with the same songs I enjoy to this day; Jim Reeves, Buck Owens and The Chipmunks. Dad is bringing all the decoration boxes from the basement. In the box there’d be some miscellaneous newspapers from Christmases past which always mystified me. We assemble the Christmas tree and Dad strings the full size string of lights carefully on each branch.  The sky is a rose gold in the setting sun, the snow outside is light and sparkly and there’s the faint smell of the heat from the lights touching the plastic branches.  They don’t make candles to recreate that festive smell do they.

It’s nineteen-eighty-something and completely magical.

There were some Christmases that we had two Christmas trees.  We had the artificial one in the basement and a real tree upstairs.  Dad’s brilliant trick to filling in the bare spots on the real tree was to take a branch from the bottom, drill a hole where the bare spot was and attach the branch.  It’s a trick I think he got from my Grandpa.

The decorations were a mixture of shiny baubles, felt ornaments and things we made. One decoration was always a small bell with a blue ribbon that I think had something to do with my brother (his birthday is Christmas Day) but I don’t know what.  There was silver garland and not tinsel because that was too messy.  The tree topper was a multi coloured star.  At the bottom of the tree rested a small plastic manger scene.

Some years Dad would want to hang streamers and foil stars from the ceiling. Mom would protest…”what are you doing that for?”…but often let him get his way.  There’d be a wreath that hung on the back door window that made the curtain puff out kind of funny.

My fuzzy Christmas stocking would rest on the arm of the couch. We didn’t have a fireplace or chimney. I hoped Santa had a key.  

It was probably a Sunday evening in December and when we were done we’d sit in the dark with just the retro glow of the Christmas tree and soft music playing. The next morning, getting ready to go to school, the tree would be lit up in its comforting glow in the coolness of winter. 

Everything would be ready and waiting for Mr Claus’ annual visit.

Out There

When I was a kid I saw the movie I Wanna Hold Your Hand.  It was on one of our then called Super Channels which was a 24 hour movie channel.  I've never watched the movie since but I remember how it showed the hysteria of the culture surrounding the Beatles and their fans.

When I was in junior high school I went through a whole 50's and 60's phase.  I made mixed tapes [remember those?] of music from that time period.  I borrowed records from the library and recorded them onto cassette tape.  I borrowed all the Beatles greatest hits albums and transferred them to cassette tape.  This was also around the time Duran Duran hit it big and I quickly transferred my obsession to them and the new British Invasion.

In a million years I would have never thought I'd ever have a chance to see someone of the calibre of Paul McCartney in concert anywhere near my home.  People like that only toured in the US and maybe had one or two concert dates in Canada.

As a piano "mackdaddy", I've taught many students to play Let it Be, Hey Jude, and Yesterday.  I've felt it is my duty as a music teacher to educate the up and coming about relative music.  I teach the songs and I try to teach the story behind it.

In 2012, I went to New York and saw the building John Lennon was killed in front of.  I walked through Central Park which contains Strawberry Fields and a memorial to John Lennon.

This year.  I got to go to Mosaic Stadium in Regina, Saskatchewan for an evening of magic with 40,000 other people.  I saw Sir Paul McCartney in concert for the final night of the North American Out There tour.

It was EPIC.

We drove into Regina about 4pm and checked into the Days Inn which has the highest beds of all time.  Seriously, when I stood beside the bed, it was hip high.  We couldn't find a restaurant so we had to get a quick and untastey burger at McDonald's before we lined up for the shuttle buses to the stadium.  We were there at what we thought was early.  Within a very short period of time the line traveled around the entire parking lot.  The buses could only take 45 people at a time.  There weren't enough buses.  Some people were opting to drive instead but the city strongly urged people to take the SGI sponsored shuttles instead.  So we stuck with the shuttles.

That wasn't the worst of it.

When we got to the block before the stadium there were streets blocked off with police everywhere.  The line up for the gate to our seating was a city block long.  The signage inside the stadium was poor.  It was hot and we had been standing forever.  Bottled water was $4.  So finally we found our seats and settled in.  I use the word 'seat' generously because it was a bench basically.  The guy on the isle got the worst of it by only  half perching on the seat.

Because it was taking such an enormous amount of time for fans to get there the concert did not start on time.  It started an hour after it's supposed initial start time of 8pm.  But something was happening and does tend to happen when 40,000 people are in a stadium together and the sun is setting making the moon [and I'm not talking about Jon Cornish here] over Mosaic a magical place. 

 

A spontaneous wave broke out.  Have you ever seen that amount of people participating in the wave?  I bet we set a record.

Finally, Paul appeared on stage and from there on out.....it was purely 3 hours of legendary music spanning 50 years.  We heard tributes to Lennon and Harrison.  We heard songs dedicated to two of his wives.  We heard stories of recordings and playing with Jimmy Hendrix and it was all incredible.  At one point he took a certain section of the stage to himself.  It was himself and his guitar, which he played about 5 different types.  McCartney talked about telling people how much you love them while you have the chance and how he didn't with John Lennon.  Then he sang a song about him and the stage began to rise up while water falls emerge on the screens below.  Paul wiped away a tear when he was done.

At another point in the concert, he took to his piano to sing Let it Be.  I've heard it billions of times.  This was the most emotional time I've ever experienced it as the entire stadium lit up with lighters and cell phones.  Again, Paul was clearly moved by the outpouring of emotion from the crowd.

The most mind blowing part of the concert was the rendition of Live and Let Die.  I can't even hardly explain the jaw dropping excitement as flames were shot off the stage and fireworks streaked into the night sky.  Wow.  Just plain WOW.

During the 1st encore Hubby pulled my arm and said we should go and catch our bus.  We were clearly leaving early as by the time we hit the bottom of the stairs Paul had broken into Yesterday.  So we stood outside on the street with tons of other people listening in the night.  When it was over we headed to our bus while more fireworks went off and could be seen for blocks around.
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Today we were lucky and beat the rush to the continental breakfast which was delish!  We needed it because we were sight seeing before heading home for the 3 hour drive.  The first place we went was the Legislature Building.  This is the massive building which our Premiere Brad Wall conducts all provincial business.  It is on the bank of Wascana Lake and features immaculate gardens, sculptures and walking trails.  There was a tour which takes a half hour but we had other places to get to.

Rider practice!!!!!  We got a little lost trying to find Leibel Field but finally found it.  It was 32*C so we didn't stay as long as originally planned.  It was fun to watch the team practice.  It was cool to hear the 'wolf pack' howl in unison a number of times.  I snapped a few shots before we left for lunch.

Lunch was at the Star Italian Deli.  The main objective was cannoli.  And yes, they did have cannoli!  It was really good too.  We also got assorted Italian meat sandwiches and an orange Boylan soda, another treat from our NYC trip.

Because of the heat, we decided to drive and eat.  We found the highway and zoomed off with enough vivid memories to last a life time.  I am still drinking it all in.  It is amazing to be Out There.