I Want Your Text

Big news in Canada today for cell phone users. Two of the country's major carriers are about to implement a new charge for receiving a text message. Currently, the charge is 15 cents for each text message you send. But soon you'll also get dinged the same amount for receiving a text message. Based on the astronomical rise in the popularity of text messaging over the past 5 years, this will become a 1 billion dollar ... yes, BILLION dollar pie for carriers to get a bite of.

As a result of this story, The Province, one of Vancouver's daily newspapers, had a bit of an eye-catching headline today. For some reason it struck as kinda hilarious so thought I'd just post it for anyone not in Vancouver right now. You can see what Vancouverites are seeing today in our newspaper boxes as we walk the streets on a sunny and very warm summer day.

OMG! GM @ GM (place)

It appears as though I'm right on track to relive the 80's as much as possible in the course of one week thanks to checking out a couple live concerts by superstars from that big hair, bad fashion era.

Not only did I manage to catch Cyndi Lauper and the B-52's last week, I also saw George Michael at GM Place last Friday night. Me and the gang took advantage of an actual Ticketmaster sale at the end of May which had George Michael concert tickets available for just 25 bucks! When was the last time you got to see a major recording artist performing live for less money that it takes to fill up your gas tank? Of course, thanks to Ticketmaster's "convenience" fee, the final price was $40.

By the way, Ticketmaster, I've yet to hear a plausible explanation and definition of just what exactly is a "convenience" fee. Is it for the convenience of having about 2 minutes on your website to decide if the seats your software finds for me are appropriate for my requirements and worth an exorbitant total before you timeout and make me perform a ticket search all over again?allowing ourselves to be fleeced in a consumer-driven society which just might leave us behind if we're not part of periodic pop cultural events? Or is it for the convenience of people being enabled to buy a ticket to the marriage of art and profiteering? Or is it for… I digress.

Anyway, I imagine '25' was the magic number for the ticket price because the tour is titled "25 Live" to celebrate GM's 25 years in the recording biz. I've actually seen (and met) George Michael before, but that was a long time ago and I gotta be honest… I definitely didn't expect he'd have the kind of pull he used to have, but sure enough GM Place was packed to the rafters (which, conveniently, is precisely where our tickets placed us).

Thanks to the beer (which is $7.50 a serving), I kinda lost track of exactly how long the show was but I'm sure it was at least 2 hours, plus a 20 minute intermission. The show was high energy and a lot of fun actually.

What was really impressive was the fact that the crowd was so into the show. Let's face it, Vancouver audiences can be pretty reserved (read: lame) in their response to live performances although lately I've seen some rather lively audiences at the Adele and Mika shows. For George Michael, everyone at GM Place was on their feet from the floor seats - all the way up to the nosebleeds.

The set list was just hit after hit after stinking pop hit. When you hear all his songs in a row like we did at the concert, you can realize just how prolific his career has been thus far. He played ancient Wham! tunes like Careless Whisper, A Different Corner, Everything She Wants and I'm Your Man. He also played pretty much everything off of the Faith album except I noted I Want Your Sex was nowhere to be heard. There was also lots of 90's tunes like Too Funky, Fastlove and Praying for Time (that's the one he did on American Idol this past season).

I think one of GM's best tunes is Freedom. After two encores, that song was the final song of the night. It was a definite crowd pleaser. Here's a video of it which is shot pretty much from the same vantage point we had for the show. At the end of the clip, you'll see production credits - those were actually displayed live on stage as the show came to a close. Never seen that before. Anyway, here's the clip - enjoy...

Btw, GM Place is also home to the Vancouver Canucks who we hope will be able to pull out all the stops this coming hockey season. If you need tickets for hockey games or concerts in Vancouver, check out Tickets Tonight at 200 Burrard Street, right beside the Canada Place cruise ship terminal and convention centre.

She Still Bops

Kinda feels like summer has arrived for good in Vancouver. Not only is there a good amount of sun lately, but the live music scene has picked up in a way that happens only at this time of year ... with outdoor shows and festivals.

You might already know that at the end of July, the first Pemberton Festival kicks off with some pretty cool acts like NIN, Coldplay, Interpol, Jay Z, Vampire Weekend, Metric, Chromeo and LOTS more (it's a 3-day blitz).

It's all going down just a couple hours north of the city - and if you've never seen the Pemberton Valley, this would be the *perfect* time to check it out because it's pretty amazing up there - big mountains, big sky, big fun.

Another summer outdoor festival is the True Colours tour. It hit Vancouver last Wednesday at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby (an eastern suburb of Vancouver for anyone just getting to know this area). The True Colors tour is one of the newest music projects spearheaded by Cyndi Lauper and is named after her hit song from way back in 1986. The annual tour was inaugurated last summer in the U.S. and this year Vancouver was included on the itinerary.

The show features a considerably varied line up of talent representing a fairly diverse selection of artists. The line up in Vancouver included Nona Hendryx, Joan Armatrading, Rosie O'Donnell, Carson Kressley, Margaret Cho, The B-52's, Sarah McLachlan and, of course, Cyndi Lauper was the headliner.

The whole purpose of the tour is to raise awareness of human rights, specifically for the gay community. A portion of the ticket sales goes to non-profit partners and additional fundraising is enabled through merchandise sales and online auctions.

About the actual venue… somehow I've never been to Deer Lake Park before, but am I ever glad I went! It's a great outdoor venue for a concert because the parkland you have to sit on to see the show (for some insane reason, chairs are not permitted) is on a gentle slope toward the lake itself. The stage was setup at the bottom of the slope so the sightlines are all good because nobody's big, fat head gets in your way.

Deer Lake Park is also basically adjacent to the Burnaby Village Museum and the Burnaby Art Gallery so there's definitely more than one reason to go check it out.

Although I had a really brutal case of sinusitis that day, I wasn't about to give up a ticket that cost me $70. Turns out sitting on a blanket outside watching a concert was the same as sitting in the park across the street from my house with my iPod for company. I got through it alright except for going through an entire box of Kleenex during the show.

Here's a clip of Vancouver's Sarah McLachlan and Cyndi Lauper performing Time After Time: