Keane at the Orphuem !

Sorry - but 'Port' just isn't very Rock n' Roll now is it ?

The Orpheum Theatre this evening saw the massed ranks of Vancouver’s English ex-pats descend upon Granville Street to witness the heady wild stage excesses that are

‘Keane’ !!!

Ahem ? Yeah Right – Oh !! Given that the three band members originate from that well known hot bed of music talent and history – Hastings, East Sussex, you can understand that it wasn’t going to be likely that a chicken was about to have it’s head bitten off on stage a la Ozzy Ozbourne !

Clearly all three being public school boys who probably grew up playing conkers until they were 16 it seemed all a bit fake when matey boy lead singer started bleeting on about the ‘dark times’ of his recent addiction being the inspiration for some of their new songs !!

Addiction huh ? Cocaine perhaps……….? Heroin maybe……….? Vodka on his cornflakes even ……… ? No ! it turns out our man liked a glass of port or two too many after his evening roast ! One can only guess this was before or after the stilton ?

What a load of old tosh ! Having said that the venue was magnificent, the light show top notch and the performance pretty damn good as it goes. As it was the last day of their North American tour we also got gifted with two encores prior to being kicked out.

Only a month or two now until the Kaiser Cheifs and Arctic Monkeys visit town and hopefully give a proper rock n' roll account of England in the Commodore Ballroom.

DJ Russ C Birthday Burns Weekender !

For those of you long term ‘Stig in Vancouver’ blog readers that have stuck to the task of reading this (very loosely punctuated) drivel since its inception in May 2006, you may recall a certain tale on my birthday last year that had a very positive lady provide me with a birthday kebab ??? Burning candles and all !

Well it turns out said positive smiley lady (who has a thing for that mad gobby American mobile smile Tony Robbins who spouts all sorts of happy positive thinking claptrap and general common sense b*ll*x) enjoys celebrating all her friends birthdays by poking various food substances with candles !

Enter our new birthday boy, Russ C ! The Selby snowboarding record spinning legend in his own tea break whipper snapper, who turned the grand old age of 26 this fine Rabbie Burns weekend.

That the aforementioned smiley lady happened to be his missus and Scottish, did mean that all assembled to celebrate were treated to the rather amusing site of a glorious BC Haggis clapped to the table with a nice burning candle up front ! In fairness with a good portion of the tour party being from north of the border, the ‘neeps and tatties’ served during recital of various Burns poems made for a grand occasion on this fella’s big day.

Prior to this and having a house of 12 willing revelers, three amazing ski days were crammed in led by our resident ‘father of the house’, Adam the ‘tangerine dream’ Ontario.

Who, far from being slowed down by his increasing incontinence, creaky joints and wheezing lungs, drove the assembled team down into Symphony bowl and some glorious sunshine skiing. Amazingly, given that he will see 40 before Russ sees 30, our man was last seen standing in our night club of choice Tommy Afrika’s Saturday night well after Team Australia had made their usual 9pm finish.

Unfortunately not having brought a lady friend along and having traveled up in the ever more scary team Australia ‘side kick’ battle cruiser, I was doomed to share the bunk bed room yet again with Gorgeous George the all Devon and Cornwall snoring champ, 1996.

Given that my bunk bed decided to collapse in the middle of night one, along with my usual late January bout of near death influenza making its usual appearance, I feel my performance on the slopes and in the pub was still pretty good considering I had accumulated all of ten hours sleep during the weekend.

Any thought of grabbing some zeds on the way back down to Vancouver Monday morning was swiftly discarded as Leigh and I managed initially a 180 spin on one bend, before trumping that five minutes later with a 360 in the crazy amounts of snow falling !

All good fun ! Happy Birthday Russ and thanks to you and Jackie for putting on such a top event.

Powder Days 13 +14 !

Hot on the tracks from hitting double figure ski days over crimbo in Big White, and with oodles of snow continuing to dump all over BC, it would have been rude not to keep the pace up on my mission to ski 50 days this season !

Ski days 13 and 14 were mounted over two consecutive Sundays, one blessed with 25cm of fresh powder from the previous night and the other with glorious sunshine and no boarders (well not quite, Russ was around somewhere on his cocktail tray).

I must apologise at this point for the appalling appearance of one member of team Australia (riding the sidekick ‘aussie uwt’ up the hill) who had clearly spent all of thirty bucks on his essential ski gear for the season.

Wearing a hoody that one of the local teenage park dwellers would be proud of under his work jacket and scrounging a pair of lost pink goggles from the side of one run, everyone’s favourite ‘hobbit from the shire’ looked more like a german tank commander in his baggy pants.

Why ? …..because they are so small and tight around the ankles that they could not be passed over his boots. Hence he looked more like Rommel in the desert than Klammer in the snow.

Fair play though – for a beach bum who is fond of his flip flops and sleeveless shirts he did pretty well keeping up with Team England for most of the day, before the usual early bath by Team Australia was requested as they hadn’t had a hot chocolate for a few hours.

My powder day was spent with Mr + Mrs Rab C Burns here who took great delight in working me to an exhausted pulp on my skis as they lapped up the knee deep powder and surfed around !

Canucks !

It only took nine months then !

With out beating a theme to death here, you may have noticed I am not all that enamored with working for a consultancy practice as opposed to the good old ‘bash the subbie’ general contractor !

Working for the suit and satchel brigade I am missing out on way too many free booze ups compared to my mates working for local general contractors ! How am I supposed to find out about the local dens of ill repute when no mad as hatters subbie is guiding me around and paying for the privilege.

Come back William Hare – all is forgiven !

Any way before I bleet on too much, tonight I was asked along to watch the local ice hockey (or was that ice dancing) team from Vancouver, courtesy of my blacktop provider. Go the Canucks !

Now in fairness my hosts did lay out the special treatment ! Sitting in a private box, the pre-puck drop build up was spent tucking into steak, lobster, scallops and Sleeman Honey Brown whilst quizzing the locals why indeed the skaters on show before us felt the need to wear more layers than an Eskimo out fishing the nearest iceberg.

I have yet to hear a worthwhile argument justifying why ice hockey players (who set their stall out as hard nuts) need to protect themselves with as much padding as the local army bomb disposal unit ?

All the fans go nuts with noise when a punch up erupts (which is generally every ten minutes). This I can only assume is laughter whilst watching two boys swing hay makers at each other looking like a couple of Geordie boys pished up in the taxi rank line fighting over who gets to take Tracy home !

Perplexing ! But very amusing none the less !

In between sectors ?? sessions ?? ……… periods I think they call them, more and more nosh and booze was pushed in front of those of us gathered there that culminated in a finale of gateaux swimming in Baileys and Grand Marnier !

My only disappointment for the evening was that given I had a visa medical examination the next morning, I had to stay calm with the yellow lemonade in order to ensure my sample did not resemble the chemical make up of Australian lager (weak and flat).

Thanks to the boys who invited me out though.