Friday night fame

So, I think yesterday I said I would fill you all in on my Friday night.

Got stuck in MAJOR traffic on my way downtown, stupid traffic, ridiculous traffic. Traffic that made me want to get the hell out of my car and drag the asshole that yelled at me for letting one car not 5 in front of me out of his car and rip his head off so he could watch me beat the crap out of him for being a complete BUTTHEAD!

Sigh.

My temper.

Milles excuses....

Anyhoodles. Finally get down to the parking, slam my car into a spot, pay the dude that has gotten to know me well now (all the smaller music venues in Montreal are very close to each other) and run to Metropolis because I'm figuring I may be late, and everything can go wrong when you get a photo pass, as in the person with the passes not informing anyone that you are coming!

Pick up my ticket from the box office (you don't usually get a free ticket when the acts are small, which is fine, they need to pay the bills and I generally don't photograph anyone I'm not interested in listening to anyway). Melissa Ferrick's tour manager had told me that the pass would be at the box office. However it was not.

Understand that generally speaking, security sees a camera with a lens like mine and it's out the door you go or you leave the camera at the box office unless you have a pass.....so I'm pretty bent out of shape, until the security guy points to this dude coming out of the venue and says "He seems to know all, ask him".

So I say "any idea who has the photo passes?". Dude looks at me and says "um nooooo", then laughs and says "You are Myself, you are *it* tonight for photographers so go right on in". And proceeds to tell me that he liked my Derek Trucks photos on my website. Wow.

I get into the venue. Now. Melissa is an out lesbian, so very much like the Melissa Etheridge show I figured that there would be quite a few in attendance at this show.

I was not disappointed.

I figure there were about 150 women there. Four of us were straight. The rest were not. And of the straight girls, one was me, one was the tour manager for the opening act Andrew Ripp Band, and the other two were there to see Melissa.

As for guys, six, tour manager of Melissa, two guys from the Andrew Ripp Band, the bartender and the two boyfriends of the two straight girls!

Andrew Ripp Band was amazing. Seriously, what a great choice for Melissa's opening act. And what a daunting prospect this guy going out there knowing fully well they are Melissa fans, and knowing full well he's playing to a house of women that *don't* find him as cute as he is (see below photo!). Really wowed me he did.




Photographed him for the requisite 3 songs even though I didn't have a limit from his management, I don't feel it fair to stick a camera in an artist's face all night....regardless...listened for the rest of the time. Fantaqstic.

So Le Savoy is a small room in Metropolis, the act has to go thru the crowd to get to the stage, Andrew saw me, and stopped and said "oh! I'll be back to talk to you!". We had a quick 2 email correspondence on Myspace while I was looking for an email addy for his management. Anyhoo, he came back and thanked me for taking photos and introduced me to his tour manager. They were all super.

I felt like bloody royalty!

Then Melissa was on.



Teensy little thing, big voice, phenomenal guitarist, and hilarious, the stories, I can't even describe them, she is bloody funny. She's got more than one cd out, having been dropped by a large label a while ago, and makes a go of it herself with her own label. I love that. The system fucks you, fuck the system back.

Regardless of the tunes of love and loss being written from the perspective of woman to woman, it's the eternal story and it works for everyone, regardless of your sexual orientation.

I was floored. Really.

There is so much amazing music out there that people just don't know about, and if it's not on the top 40, no one listens, and these musicians are amazing, fantastic, prolific, ultimate musicians....it's like Six Shooter Records tag line says - "Because life's too short to listen to shitty music".

Amen.

I will not be a lemming.

Anyhoo, when she was done, I said goodbye to her tour manager, bid a fond farewell to the Andrew Ripp Band bunch and said "the straight girl contingent will be leaving now!", and left to laughs all over.

This weekend coming, it's out to Wakefield Friday to see Martin Tielli with Jenn Grant opening at the Black Sheep Inn (Six Shooter artist, my fav label!), Saturday The Stills (the Montreal band handpicked by Paul McCartney to open for him in Quebec City).....and Sunday night Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, who I saw perform with Derek Trucks, what a voice!

I love my hobby!