Author: Dan Dickinson

"Remember it was me who dragged you up to the sweaty floor"

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Last year Frightened Rabbit (myspace) kind of appeared on my radar from out of nowhere with The Midnight Organ Fight, an album I loved instantly and which landed in my top ten of the year. When I heard they were coming to town I thought I’d better get on it, Ticketmaster service charges be damned.

And so it was that last night Joe, Sheila, Nellie and I went to see them at the Horseshoe, stopping first for dinner at the Adelaide St. Pub…which isn’t quite a pub, but whatever. It’s a decent spot that serves decent beer in the decidedly indecent entertainment district, and such things are not to be taken for granted, especially when they have a decent patio.

We missed the first opener entirely (almost as if we planned it that way) and arrived just as The Antlers (myspace) took the stage. I was actually pretty impressed, enough so that I came home and downloaded their newest album from eMusic. I have to say, though, they’re a band that sounds very different live than they do in the studio. Watching them live I thought they were about 70% Walkmen, 20% Wolf Parade, 5% Jeff Buckley‘s voice and 5% bombast from This Will Destroy You or Explosions In The Sky…certainly a winning combination for yours truly. Listening to their music right now, though, it sounds nothing like that. It’s over-engineered, over produced. The singer’s voice loses all emotion and the drums might as well not even be there. It’s too bad…I really enjoyed their set, and was hoping it would translate off-stage. It’s not bad, mind you, just less impressive than I found them last night.

A few minutes later Frightened Rabbit was up to do their thing, and it was just what everyone wanted. They blasted through just about all the songs on Midnight Organ Fight (except “Floating In The Forth”, dammit) and a few from their debut (“Mu! Sic! Now!”), then came back out for an encore, which was pretty cool: first Scott Hutchinson led a singalong of “Poke” without a mic, and then did a blazing “Keep Yourself Warm” to end the night. They seemed to enjoy it, the crowd loved it. We loved it too. $16 well spent.

A few miscellaneous observations:

  • The bouncer dug my The Suburbs Are Killing Us tshirt.
  • My hearing is just now returning to normal. We were a little close to one of the speakers. They’re no Mogwai, but locations counts for a lot in a place like the ‘Shoe.
  • It seems wrong, somehow, that the Horseshoe would carry Mill Street Organic beer.

The only thing that I got's been botherin' me my whole life

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Ugh. I sat down, all ready to write a nice long blog post about something frightfully interesting, but my brain is so foggy from this cold and all the DayQuil* I’m taking to deal with it that I can’t string together a coherent sentence. I’ll get back to you on…whatever it was I was going to write about and have already forgotten.

In the meantime, I can muster some thoughts about the two books I just finished: Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk was one of his better ones, I thought. It took me some time to get used to the writing style, but once I did I flew through it. I actually wish it had gone on a little longer, a rare sensation for me with books. I then whipped through Deliver Me From Nowhere by Tennessee Jones, ten short stories written as companion pieces to each of the songs on Bruce Springsteen‘s excellent Nebraska album. Some were good, some were tedious, but only the first two felt like they added to the songs that inspired them. Still, a worthwhile (and quick) read for fans of the album.

* By the way, is it no longer possible to get DayQuil in liquid form? I stumbled out to a drugstore yesterday for provisions, and can find lots of liquid NyQuil, but DayQuil seems to only come in capsule form now. I have to take 2 or 3 just to feel anything, whereas a little gulp of the liquid stuff and I was giddily altered for a good four hours.

Wrapping up the trip

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The fruits (ha ha) of our labours
The fruits (ha ha) of our labours

In the twenty-four hours since my last blog post we:

  • Watched Taken (imdb | rotten tomatoes) which was both highly entertaining and patently absurd;
  • Had dinner at Seven Wine Bar with many Halifax friends, followed by drinks at Durty Nelly’s and yet another stop at Pizza Corner;
  • Awoke, arose and had breakfast with T-Bone and The Sof (who had an earlier flight) and were joined briefly by Marney and Amy;
  • Got to the airport early so we could catch a bite, where our friends were still waiting (their incoming flight was diverted) and who eventually took off after us, despite being on a flight meant to leave three hours earlier;
  • Arrived home to find some happy, happy cats.

By the way, here’re the wineries we visited Thursday. I couldn’t be bothered to find all the sites before:

None of the samples really blew us away, but we found enough interesting ones to buy nine bottles. I think the one we’re looking forward to the most is the Alchemy from L’Acadie, which we couldn’t sample but has drawn some fanfare.

Back where it all began

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I haven’t had an internet connection the past couple of days, and I have far too much to type to bother using this silly little keyboard, so I’ll keep the events bullet-point form for now:

  • Wednesday: drove to the Annapolis Valley, checked in to a nice little bed and breakfast, visited Nellie’s mom for dinner…massive, massive dinner
  • Thursday: visited five (!) local wineries, tasted a lot, bought nine (!!) bottles, had excellent dinner at the winery and a nice drink and dessert on their patio
  • Friday: drove to Halifax, saw some tall ships, watched KISS arrive at the Lord Nelson. In about an hour we’ll head out to dinner, our last of the trip.

The locals don't go there. Which, in this case, is a good sign.

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The coma continued yesterday. Mainly just sitting around and reading and napping. We did go for a bit of a drive up into the sugar woods and then around the farm a bit, but nothing serious. Last night we piled everybody up and went to the Bare Bones cafe in Parrsboro.

I’ve never been to a restaurant in Parrsboro with actual edible food, so this actually felt a little weird. My buffalo and warm rocket starter was quite tasty, my chicken wasn’t bad and my warm chocolate cake & white russian milk shake dessert was interesting. Certainly not going to knock Splendido or Canoe out of my mental top ten list or anything, but just miles ahead of anything else I’ve ever eaten in that town. The service was a little slow, perhaps because our table of eleven might’ve been throwing them off their game, and one of the servers seemed quite young and fairly new. One person’s appetizer arrived minutes after the rest, and then we all waited while another person’s entree showed up several minutes after the others.

I showed T-Bone and The Sof a little more of the town, including the site of my perpetual agony (the school) and the theatre and the pier to see the tides. We got home, chilled, beat my dad at crib (at least, I did) and were about 3/4 through The Princess Bride when the power went out. That’s pretty weird…I’ve only known that to happen in the winter. Anyway, we decided to just go to bed. So now we’re up, getting packed, finding some breakfast and getting ready to hit the road.

Next stop: the Annapolis Valley.

In which we enter a near-vegetative state

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Yesterday we began phase two of our vacation: the farm. We got up, checked out, had lunch at the Economy Shoe Shop with some friends, picked up the rental car, bumped into the bride and groom one last time, and pointed ourselves north.

We drove with beautiful weather and good music for just over two hours and hit the farm at 4pm on the nose. A little playtime with the kids, lots of barbecue, a short walk around the farm and a drink with the brother and sister-in-law at theirs and we were ready for sleep. It actually took me a long time to nod off as pitch blackness and absolute quiet are so far from what I’m used to now, living in downtown Toronto, but I managed it. Eight solid hours of sleep later and I got up, hours before everyone else. That’s ok, they like to have a lie-in, so they’re welcome to it. Me, on the other hand, this is the time of day on the farm that I love the most. Just me, Stryder (who can barely get around now, poor old guy) and the tin of chocolate chip cookies mom just baked.

It's dangerous to be this close

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Mmmmmmmmm. We’ve only been here 12 hours and it’s already been a pretty sweet trip. Our flight was on time, our cab driver (limo driver, really) was very friendly and helpful (try Crystal Limousine if you’re ever coming from the airport), we got some great food and Garrison beer at the Economy Shoe Shop, one of the few places still serving food. Wiped, we crashed hard in our king bed.

We woke up to a beautiful morning, a welcome respite from what we’ve heard is weeks of gray and rainy weather. We didn’t have too much time before prepping for the wedding, but we did manage to have breakfast, do some emergency sock-shopping at Dugger’s and pick up some wine at Bishop’s Cellar. With all the usual festivals and activities that happen here in the summer, and with Paul McCartney playing here today, the city’s jumping right now.

OK, gotta get ready.