a weekend of rock and roll fun

this blog could alternately be titled "I don't believe that anybody felt the way I did", which I thought of in a restless sleep the night after the Oasis concert that Steve and I attended with his bestfriend Paul and Paul's lovely girlfriend Laurie. So if I'm going to be reviewing the events of the past 5 days, that seems as good a place as any to start.

First off, it's really important to know that I'm not making any attempt to provide an objective summary of the Oasis concert - so many of my memories and important moments in life are inextricably tied to albums like What's the Story (Morning Glory)? and Definitely Maybe that to simply review the live experience in a musical sense denies how deeply it affected me. I felt like my entire adolescence, from the early morning rides to soccer tournements with star forward Chelsea singing at the top of our lungs, "need a little time to wake up, wake up", to idly doodling the lyrics "how many special people change" on my grade 9 binder in red pen, to gleefully learning all the words to "Rock and Roll Star", promising myself that when I was famous I would thank Oasis in my first Oscar acceptance speech for teaching me how to be a bad-ass celebrity. Their catelogue practically defines my life experience, and although Steve refers to my fickleness with the use of 'favorite' in his blog, Oasis has rarely been out of the top three spots over the last 10 years.

Granted (and as much as it pains me to admit it), the post WTSMG releases have left something to be desired, the Gallagher brothers still know how to energize a stadium and whether they're playing a fully-backed version of "Wonderwall" or pulling out a better-live-than-I-expected version of their new single Lyla, it's hard not to really, REALLY enjoy yourself. In my case, the word enjoy seems a bit bland -- I was light on my feet, head spinning, lights flashing, dizzy with the kind of high that you can only get from falling in love or attending a freaking good rock concert. I sang out loud unabashedly, took as many pictures as I could without getting caught, and was litereally so engrossed in the experience that I felt like the rest of the world didn't exist.

I know what you're thinking - "Oasis?" .. or something like that. And I *know* that they're not the best band to walk on the face of the earth and I *know* that they haven't made any significant or measureable influence on the rock and roll scene in a long time and I *know* that half of their public appeal comes from the so-indifferent-it-hurts act of Noel and Liam, at once confident, engaged yet always letting us know their ultimate surperiority on the basis of being "the best fooking band in the word". I know all this. I'm not disillusioned about their relative limitations; at the same time, however, I feel like I'm in love. And if you heard the deafening roar of 16,000 fans at the Molson Ampitheatre when the first piano notes of "Don't Look Back In Anger" began during the encore, you would probably agree.




more on the rest of the weekend, including a review of the riot grrls of Sleater-Kinney, later on tonight