And all we do is work to afford the cost of living So we can do the things that we want to do - Duotang

These last few days have been great. Thursday I went to the first show for North by North End (NXNE). Camoromance were pretty good. Pop Secret were poppy and fun. SS Cardiac were fantastic. Windom Earle were a blast as per usual. The video display was excellent. Definitely a enjoyable night.
Friday I went to the Pavillion. Dog Day were excellent. Really like this band and can't wait to get a copy of the cd when it comes out. Missed most of Gary Flanagin's set and not sure I really 'missed' all that much. A/V was fun set up in the middle of the floor with dancing and crowd participation.Sharp Like Knives are plain amazing. Haven't caught any of their recent shows so its good to finally catch them again. After their set Alf and I took off for Reflections. Got there to see most of Great Plains set. Really excellent band. Alf then challenged me to some awful pool. We are both really crappy at pool so its almost a challenge to see who's the worst. Alfred sunk the eight ball losing the first game, but it was a coin operated table so I suggested making one of my balls the new eight ball. I then sunk it several shots later and therefore we had both lost the game at this point. We decided to sink the rest of out balls for an ultimate loser. It was a long battle considering how few balls were left but Alfred did finish me off. So I am the champion of bad pool for now. Any other challengers? During the pool playing The Peter Pakers were playing. I'm not as fond of their sound these days. I remember at Gobblefest 8 they were incredibly good. Now I find there is too much aggravating noise to their sound. The Meligrove Band were on last. They were super good. Tambourines were handed to audience members including yours truly. Crowd participation can be an excellent addition to a show. So they finish and now its a little after 12 and the show is over so the Reflections dance crowd can start shaking their thing. What's a guy to do? Head to Stage Nine for Slowcoaster of course. So I get their and the boys haven't hit the stage yet. Talk to the assorted ex-pat Capers in the crowd. Slowco is definitely picking up a strong non Cape Breton following in Halifax. Seems there is less percentage of us there at each show lately. So I danced around up front, yelled "Airport" with Aaron "Airport" Corbett and generally had a good time. Ended up hanging out after hours with the guys and with Sheumas from the Barra MacNeils. Sheamus was talking about getting into differnt areas with your music like them in the States and how growing up they would get beat up for even taking a fiddle to school. It's intersting how they went through some tough crap like people today can find in the 'indie' scene of working really hard to make it against popular trends in culture. Darren, Devon and myself then went for some late night grup at the Apple Barrel and then went home and hit the hay.
Saturday (Day three) I'm going to Stage Nine again. Alf comes over and we soon head to Faulkland to Kim's for pre show hanging out. Walk in the door and Jared who I used to work with at the call centre is there. I hadn't seen him in some time so I didn't know whether he was still in Halifax. It was cool to see him again. After a bit we headed over to S9 for the show. Bahai Casette were nuts. Sparkly gloves, dancing, bubbles, skipping cd players and general madness. Definitely entertaining. SS Cardiac were on second, this time minus their bassist as he and the Meligrove band were in Sydney. Christian and Sean did some extra drumming with them. (I love two drumsets at once!) I wish I had picked up their cd before I left. The Burdocks finished off the night with a kickass set. These guys are an awesome group. Had a great time rocking out to them. Afterwards we headed over to North St for some partying. Had a raving discussion about Victoria and how fantastic Carolyn Mark is. Partook in some dancing and had some more cool conversations. Another good night on a fantastic weekend.