"Stars" on Stage

Ok, who can go to a Switchfoot concert and not blog about it?

As, then, you can guess, some friends and I went to Switchfoot and Copeland's concert in the bunker-like Kool Haus (the neighborhood looks like a back alley in Gotham City), their only performance in Toronto in their Great Canadian Tour. Brilliant, brilliant performance! Best concert I've been to.

First off, two friendly words of advice from a fellow-concert-goer. Regardless of the bitterly cold winds of February, never wear a heavy coat in the line going into the concert ... even if you'll be there for upwards of two hours. If you opt instead for a hoodie or its equivalent, you soar right by those poor souls who have to move into the almost-infinite line for coat-checks.
Sure, you spend the hours waiting outside shivering, desperately trying to locate feeling in all your digits (toes are the first to go). But cold can't kill you. Well ... maybe. And it can give you a nasty bronchial infection (as I have found out the hard way).
And it gets somewhat toasty when you've been in the place for three hours and you're pressed in on all sides, and everyone's jumping and singing off-key, and most people have no grasp of the novel concept of "deodorant."
But all this is a fair price to pay for staying in right at the very front of the concert! We were four feet from the fence separating us from the bands, and this brings all the benefits of the best of concert-going ... full-blast sound, an (almost) unobstructed view of the stage, and the opportunity to help the band singers body-surf (I finally found an advantage in having big hands ... when he was walking the fence and singing right over our heads, Jon picked my hand to lean on as he walked ... he had a nice ring around his finger, which I kept as a souvenir ... kidding!).

The second word of advice. If you choose the wise path of dressing light ... please, please pick reliable drivers to come and pick you up on time (still bitter, you say? nonsense!). Ours, ahem, were "clubbing" downtown as we slowly succumbed to hypothermia (actually, they were watching a movie and spent almost as much time in the cold as us, but thats beside the point).
On the bright side, we got to meet Jon Foreman in person when he came out in about a half hour and was signing autographs. We all got our tickets signed. That was pretty cool ... but not as cold as we were (ahahahaaa .... um, sorry, bad pun again ...)

Man, I thought I could keep this blog short. I haven't even talked about the concert!

I'll summarize: they played all their best stuff, in my opinion, starting with THE perfect opening head-banger, "Stars," and ending with THE perfect encore song, "Dare You to Move."
Got to hear the awesome live rendition of "Meant to Live," which is almost better than the CD, which is incredible.
"American Dream" became "Canadian Dream."
Found out they just had filmed a music video in Toronto (!!).
Had a body-surfer dropped on my head.
Watched helplessly as my friends Steven and Tim body-surfed straight over the front into the not-so-friendly arms of security (they were promptly deposited back into the roiling sea of bodies).
My friend Stephane had his first taste of alternative rock live concert and "moshing" ... incredible first taste, too.
I marveled that people below five feet did not just disappear without a trace during some of those crushing, jumping, pushing "high points."
Seeing Tim do his signature jump from the kick drum, and Jon with his tossed mic-stand and his acrobatics with a cymbal.
Watching Stephane converse with people he had never seen before like they were old friends, and not only identifying what background they were, but speaking to them in their language! ... I counted French, Arabic, Polish, Russian, and Hebrew. At that point, the rest of us were feeling antisocial and illiterate.

There are some snapshots. Wish I could rave on more, but a blog can only go on so long without getting dangerously tedious.

But you had to be there!