O,
I’m not going to bother trying to catch you all up on my life. It’s been far too long for that. Squamish is fine. There’s the answer to your question.
The Olympics are here, but you can barely notice here. There are a few more people in town, but nothing that justifies the shops staying open 24 hours, which some have done anyway because that’s what they planned for. Vancouver, on the other hand, is exploding. Nick and I went down there on Saturday the 13th for the free Wilco show, and the crowds were of impressive size. Not quite the post-fireworks rush, but close. Nick put it this way: “You know that atmosphere before a hockey game, where every one is every one’s friend and people just randomly cheer in the streets and make noise and it just feels great to be in the city? It’s like that, but all the time for two weeks straight.”
We showed up at David Lam Park at about 2:00. We had called Alissa, our cousin, an hour or so beforehand to find out what the situation was down there. She works for Toursim BC and was stationed inside the Live City location at David Lam. She said the line up was about an hour long already, so we didn’t do much before heading in that direction. I didn’t expect anything to be going on there yet, just some people getting the stage ready and others sitting on grass, waiting. Instead, we got through security to see giant corporate tents with waiting lines to get inside. In order to get inside the Coke tent, we had to get in line for a ticket that would have the time we could come back at to get inside. It was around 2:30. The next available time to get inside was 7:30.
We went to the stage instead. The Hot Moonbeams (Nick and Tim Ubels (with their dad), Dan Edwards and Dave Kandal) were right behind us. After wandering around the other tents for awhile, and losing Dan and Dave, we left the park to find some food. Yaletown was full of people, just like the rest of the city. We looked at a few places, the Raw Canvas included, but they all seemed too yuppish and expensive. We ended up at Earls, ate there, and headed back, only to find an enormous line up curving around the block. We found the end of it and began shuffling behind everyone else. It moved pretty quickly, though. We were inside about a half hour later or so.
The concert began with Default. Who knew they were still doing their thing, eh? Brang me back to grade eight. A pretty comical experience, watching them play. Black t-shirts and muscley, tattooed arms. Spikey hair. Funny. They showed the games between acts, or people winning their medals. Between Default and Califone, they showed the Women’s hockey team destroying the Slovakian team, 16, 17, 18-0.
Califone played great. I enjoyed them, but I’m not sure how many people around me did as well. At that point, the Default fans hadn’t quite exited the park, and there were a lot of “what the hey is this?” looks on people’s faces. One guy decided to voice this opinion by mock-loving them. Some things he said were funny, but mostly it was just rude. It semi-ruined the moment.
Then, after about a half-hour delay, Wilco came on… to the “Price Is Right” theme. They killed it. I had seen them before a couple years ago in Stanley Park, and they were good then, but for some reason there was an extra special something to them this night. They were excited to play. Jeff Tweedy, the lead singer, had this great, humble attitude about being chosen to play for the Olympics. They considered it a privelege, and played accordingly. Nels Cline the Guitarist amazed even the people in the crowd who had no idea who these guys were. His solo during “Side With The Seeds” was just above and beyond. I can’t even describe it to you.
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It’s been a little over a week since I started writing this. I’ve been back to the city for another concert, Hal Wilner’s Neil Young Project, which was mostly a disappointment but for a few great surprises (eg. Elvis Costello showing up and stealing the show/giving it back to Neil). We’ve gone to Whistler as a group a couple times. It’s great being part of crowds of people having a good time. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how peaceful this whole Olympics thing has been. Amidst a lot of competition and patriotism, I have seen almost no animosity between people. People are simply allowing each other to celebrate. It’s great to see. Even after the hockey game on Sunday, when Canada lost against the U.S., people let the Americans get excited. No one got angry or lashed out. Made losing a little easier, seeing my countrymates take it so well.
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It’s been two weeks now since the game above. We’ve won our gold, and almost everyone has gone home. I was weary at first about the Olympics coming here. There was a lot of talk about the poor not being treated well here and it being wrong for our government to spend all this money for games when they had more important things to do. I didn’t know where I stood. But now that it’s all over, I liked it. Seeing the world enjoy something together is a great thing to be part of. It also let Canadians finally feel like a collective. Being loud and friendly together, we finally felt a part of something other than ourselves or our past. We got to show the world what Canadian patriotism looks like, and I think they liked it.