Doing Lines With The White Stripes and The New Magnificent Seven

For many people doing a few lines before a show is a must, but it's never been my thing. A little herb and a few beers perhaps, but, you know, I've just never got into doing lines. But this past Sunday all that changed, though definitely not through any desire on my part. I was just sorta pushed into it against my will.

You may remember my adventures with The Magnificent Seven back in March, when we all rented a van and headed down to Bellingham to see Todd Snider in concert. You know, that (in)famous night when River Went On A Bender Without A Paddle. Well, this past Sunday, June 24th, I put the team back together for The White Stripes opening show of their North American tour in support of their just-released new album, "Icky Thump".

Actually I couldn't reform the original Magnificent 7 since, for some strange reason, Neil refused to drive the 8 hours out from the Kootenays for the show and Jer simply dumped us for some conference, but we did have the central core of River, Dr. Hip, my dad, Susan and myself and we replaced the other two with my cousin Ali's boyfriend, Billy, and my friend and soccer teammate, Dean.

Since both Dr. Hip and I turned 40 this month, this was definitely the perfect way to celebrate. I mean, first Todd Snider, then The White Stripes - what a fantastic year to turn 40! And it's not even halfway over yet.

As you all know, I love The White Stripes. And who doesn't love a summer concert in the park, right? So, as you can imagine, I was pretty pumped. The show was in Burnaby (a suburb of Vancouver) at Deer Lake Park, which is a great venue, with a lake right behind the stage and green trees and grass all around. It's a place where you feel like you could be 100 miles from the nearest city.

Great band, great venue, great location. Everything seemed perfect already, but the clincher was that River was coming and if you read my story about our trip down to Bellingham then you know that having River along is an integral part of the whole concert-going experience.

The only problem was that I woke up Sunday morning with a headache AND it was pouring down rain, with the forecast calling for more rain throughout the day. Suddenly the great outdoor venue didn't seem quite so ideal after all.

Well, there was nothing I could do about the weather, but I did get rid of my headache by going out and playing a couple of hours of ball hockey in the morning. Then, after a quick shower, I headed for the ferry, met River and then... spent the next three hours sitting in a long line of cars. Even though we were there more than an hour before the 2:30 ferry, it wasn't until after 4:30 that we finally got on a boat.

So, we now found ourselves more than 2 hours behind schedule... and it was pissing down rain. But we kept the new White Stripes CD cranked on the car stereo, which kept us feeling happy and positive as we drove into Vancouver to first pick up Billy, who happens to look a lot like Jimmy Fallon, then Dean, who was already quite merrily intoxicated. Dean, it must be noted, seemed completely transfixed, before, during and after the show, by the fact that The White Stripes have no bass player. This, he made quite clear, was a very negative thing in his mind. But, still, we stayed positive.

Next we met up with Dr. Hip, my dad and Susan and all seven of us headed out to Burnaby. We arrived to find a very long line winding it's way hundreds of yards back from the park entrance and moving at a snails pace to boot. The opening band was already playing and we had no idea how long it was going to take to get into the park, but still we stayed positive, especially after Dean and River went off and found us another entrance with a much shorter line.

We finally got into the venue just after the opening band had finished up their set... and just as the sun started to break through the clouds. It was 7:00, one hour before The White Stripes were to take the stage, and we were pumped and positive... until we were informed about the process of acquiring a beer.

In one of the most moronic decisions since certain parents decided to send their kids to hang out alone with sexually frustrated celibate priests and/or Bush decided to "liberate" the people of Iraq, the powers that be at Deer Lake Park had, it seems, decided to put a bloody Triple P (Puritanical Prohibitionist Protestant) Freak in charge of beer sales. I promise I am not exaggerating one bit when I tell you that to buy a beer at this show you needed to stand in 3 separate lines. That's right, three separate lines! And we did.

In the first line we received a "Drinking age verified" bracelet to prove we were of legal drinking age. Even my almost-68-year-old dad, we were told, needed one or he wouldn't be permitted to have a beer. The thing is, once you finally got to the front of this line they were giving out bracelets without even looking at people. I saw kids who appeared to be 16 or 17 getting bracelets. Next you had to stand in another long line to buy beer tickets. Here we got lucky in that someone came up and sold us their tickets. Soon we'd understand why they didn't want them.

Tickets in hand, two lines completed, and feeling very thirsty indeed, we now headed to the third line, the one where we could actually get some beer. As we started walking towards the end of the line, however, we realized it, literally, wound it's way off into the distance for hundreds and hundreds of yards. The show was sold out - 8,000 people - and this was the only bloody line to get a beer!!

It was then that Billy, for no apparent reason other than mean-hearted cruelty, handed me a disgusting bucket of fries right after I'd smoked a joint and was, therefore, completely defenseless in the face of the urge to eat as many of them as I could stuff down my throat. I'm talking a real plastic bucket... and I'm talking some really disgustingly over-fried fries.

Anyhow, that's how, at 8:00 when the White Stripes came on and began to play, I found myself not up close to the stage screaming and shouting as you'd expect, but standing at the back of the park in the middle of a line holding a bucket of cold greasy fries. I should have just abandoned my beers and headed for the stage, but I was overcome with an incredibly strong urge to not let the goddamn Triple P Freaks win. Plus, I really felt like a beer by this point.

So, it wasn't until the fourth song - and an hour and 15 minutes after we'd started to stand in Beer Line #1 - that I finally found myself heading towards the stage, beer in hand. After my dad, Susan and I had drank our beers together I waded into the crowd in search of River. Amazingly I found him in the crush, 30 to 40 yards back from the stage. He was amazed, and pretty damn excited, that I had actually found and delivered a full beer to him right up there. But, really, it was the least I could do after all he had done for us at the Todd Snider show.

The show itself was great, though it felt far too short at only an hour and 25 minutes. The sound was excellent. Jack and Meg played off of each other brilliantly and their sound was so tight. It was hard to believe there were only two of them up there making all that noise. My biggest disappointment was that they didn't play my favorite song off of their new album, "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)". However they did play a great version of my second fav new song, "Effect and Cause".

For me the two highlights of the night were both, oddly enough, covers, though both are songs that they long ago made their own: Dolly Parton's "Jolene" and Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself". It was a great show, especially the encore, which we moved up even closer to the stage for. However, when it was all over I couldn't help thinking that I'd really like to see them in a much smaller indoor venue next time.

So, it was now 9:30 and it was all over, but before we all headed off to the pub for a beer and, in my case, anything but fries, I had the pleasure of standing in one more 20-minute-long line to buy a t-shirt, only to find that they had no good shirts left when I finally got to the front.

And so that, my friends, is the story of how I simply set out to have a good time enjoying The White Stripes in concert, but ended up being forced, against my will, into doing lines all day long instead: Lines to get on the ferry, lines to get into the venue, lines to not buy t-shirts and three %$&#ing lines just to buy a beer! In total, I spent hours and hours in line, but, in the end, I didn't really mind all that much, as it was such a great show and day over all. I mean, we could have ended up shivering in the pouring rain all show long, but instead we ended up watching the whole concert under clear, sunny skies.

Oh, and one last thing: It was three years ago today that Kaishan was conceived in an Istanbul hotel over in Turkey. And since that day, though I've been away two nights, both times with The Magnificent Seven on road trips to see shows, I've never been away from him for a full day. In other words, I've been with him every single day of his existence, from fertilized egg to Todd-Snider-singing, White-Stripes-dancing, soccer-and-hockey-playing, not-so-little 2-year-and-3-month-old guy. It's been an amazing three years!

Mike Cowie (Oredakedo)
Wednesday, June 27th, 2007