Stellar Weekend- BIG MUSIC FEST

*Originally posted June 29 2009*

Saturday we attended Big Music Fest Wiarton at the Wiarton airfield, with headliners- THE TRAGICALLY HIP! Being that they're my favorite band, I could not pass up the opportunity to see them outdoors during a great Canadian summer! They played in a remote little town at an airfield, and the all day event was a blast. This was my third Hip show, of many more to come I hope! We went with our 4 other friends and Bub actually met up with some other friends once we arrived and he got seperated from us!

Also performing:
The Spades
Arkells (who I'm now a big fan of)
Sam Roberts Band

It was an awesome day. The weather was perfect, the beer was cold, the friends were good and the music was, as always, fantastic. We drove out early, listening to some great music on the way up, and after stopping for lunch, arrived at 2ish for a pre-festival tailgate party in the venue parking lot (which was a huge field). We drank some beers, at some muchies, blew-up our Canada beach balls, drank more beer (well, I didn't because I was driving home), listened to some great music and had a good time with the people around us and then headed in the actual festival at about 4.

Bubba asked me on the way there what my "must hear" songs were. My choices (and faves) were: Courage, Wheat Kings & Bobcaygeon (Bobcaygeon and Wheat Kings are two of my favorite songs EVER). We thought I was pretty much out of luck since Bubba has seen them 6 times and has never heard them perform Bobcaygeon (apparently they never perform it live) and only heard Wheat Kings once... although your pretty safe with Courage. Well, I screamed when I realized that they were about to play "Wheat Kings" about a third of the way in and the WHOLE crowd sang along (awesome), they played an awesome acoustic version of "Courage" and then coming to the end of the show, Gord, the lead singer who talks totoally randomly between songs says "It was in a little town, not unlike this one, on a night not unlike this one, although with a little less cloud cover...." and I turned to my BIL (because I had lost Bubba at this point) and said "oh my god, they're going to play it!!!"... and sure enough he continues "I saw the constellations reveal themselves one star at the time" which is a line from the chorus of "Bobcaygeon". Then the first chords of the song started and the crowd went CRAZY! I clapped my hands together and said to BIL "I'm soooo happy... I can't believe they're actually playing it!". We all sang along at the top of our lungs and swayed to the music, it was awesome.

The best line Gord said through the whole concert was "all winter, we stay inside and dream of nights like this. Perfect summer nights outside with friends and music"... and it's so true. The Hip music is the Canadian summer. You'd be hard pressed to drive around in cottage country (Muskoka) on a Saturday in the summer and not hear someone blasting the Hip.
The whole day was awesome ending with a bang when the Hip played the best set I've heard them play yet. If it's possible, I love the Hip even more now.