Last Friday, Lori’s friend Dave took both of us to a concert at the hall in nearby Errington. I didn’t really know what to expect, Dave had said that it was some kind of reggae-world music and that there would probably be dancing. I tagged along just because I thought it could be interesting to see how the hillbillies (Lori’s expression, not mine) in this part of the island behaved at a music event on a Friday night.
Well, if my expectations were low, the surprise when the band entered the stage was so much bigger. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The band, The Boom Booms from Vancouver, consisted of six young, superhot guys. And when they started playing, I didn’t know what to do with myself. The combination of my weakness for musicians and the fact that I hadn’t met a single person of the male sex younger than fourty for more than two weeks, much less a good looking one, made me confused and excited and combined with their music I just couldn’t control myself. I got in there, right in front of the stage, and danced like a lunatic to their reggae inspired rock-pop. For all four sets, plus the encore. Happy and sweating like a pig.
And I wasn’t the only one. I might have to revise my earlier statement about Canadians not liking to dance. These ‘hillbillies’ at the small and cute Errington concert hall stood up right away, at the beginning of the first song, and started dancing. I didn’t even have time to take a picture of the band on stage before the audience blocked my view. There were older people, dancing in pairs, and younger people like me, doing the more improvised but much less graceful single concert-club-dance.
The atmosphere in the hall got more and more extatic, the band mixed their own songs with more famous reggae and samba songs in English, Spanish and Portugese. They had a guy playing the congas, and an amazing guitarist (now afterwards, I’m not sure if my opinion of his amazingness was mainly due to his guitar playing skills, or the fact that he was amazingly good looking and had a really amazing stage presence).
We were all part of this intense energy flow and in the end when they were called back to do an encore, the guitarist even took off his shirt. Soon all six band members were jamming like crazy, barechested and sweaty. Standing as I did right in front of the stage, I didn’t know where to look. And as I always do when I’m embarassed, I had to hide behind something. So I picked up my little compact camera. Luckily, the photo became blurry. Otherwise, it might have been considered as light porn.
The concert didn’t end until well after midnight. Once I sat down in the back of the car, I felt as if I would never be able to get up again. Farm work and concert dancing is a combination that could make anyone a cripple. But, sitting there, almost falling asleep, I made a resolution: I have to get back into music. Join a choir, start a band, learn how to play the guitar. Anything. Because I need it. It’s as easy as that.
Katja Malmborg 