This time of year, I usually do a review of the various concerts I went to.
Unfortunately, this year I only made it to one concert.
Plus one celebrity speaking engagement that was being touted as a tour.
Oh, and I also wen to a city in which a concert was being held.
That last one might not seem to count, but the unattended concert cost more than my last five concerts combined, and that total includes a Ed Sheeran.
Besides, have you ever heard of a city changing it’s name for a concert?
So maybe one concert and two half concerts? You might think that adds up to two concerts, but clearly you haven’t been playing Duolingo, which seems convinced that reviewing third grade math is tantamount to learning a second language.
But that recent non-concert is probably worth a post of its own, so here we go. I’ll return with the shows I actually attended later this week.
Taylor Swift
There’s a pop star that you probably haven’t heard of. She recently finished up a concert tour. The Epochs tour? The Eons tour? Something along those lines. It hasn’t made much news.
I also heard she might be dating a football player? Can’t verify that, though. You’d think the tv coverage might, I don’t know, cut away from the game to show her once or twice? I’m surprised no one thought of that.
Anyway, yeah. My daughter decided she was in love with Taylor Swift shortly after the American portion of the Eras Tour was over. Too bad, because then we only would’ve been paying out the nose for the tickets, instead of the tickets and a myriad of other travel expenses.
We looked at going to England or Ireland when she was playing those arenas, but I wasn’t really sure how the secondary market worked across the pond. So instead we zeroed in on Vancouver, where Stubhub and Ticketmaster still run things.
That being said, I didn’t really realize that we’d be seeing the last show of the entire two-year tour. We were just looking for geographic proximity, not historic importance. Unfortunately, many other Swifties were going for other reasons, making every damn flight to and hotel in the greater Vancouver area a complete shitshow. I don’t know how many actual Vancouverites were at the three shows.
I’m starting to understnd why musicians do residencies. If the people in the city aren’t given first crack at tickets, what does it matter where you’re playing? Have the people come to you.
Then again, maybe the local people did get first crack at the tickets. And then resold them.
Our two tickets weren’t the worst seats in the house, but they certainly weren’t the best. Upper deck, a few rows back from the railing and off to the left of the stage, so not way back in centerfield. Or the endzone, since it’s a footbal stadium. Although it’s a Canadian Football League stadium, so they probably don’t call it the endzone. It’s probably the negative 55-yard line. Or the Rouge.
A few days before the concert, they released a handful of seats behind the stage. And by behind, I mean they were literally described as “No View of Stage.” You were attending for the sole purpose of watching the Jumbotron, so they only cost $16. Allegedly some of them were still flipped for $1,000.
In comparison, our “in full view of the concert” (except, Daughter infromed me afterward, of the Folklore cabin, whatever the hell that is) tickets seemed like a steal at a little northward of $1,000 each. After the various fees and premiums and Stubhub magic, the two tickets set us back about three grand. And that’s three grand American, don’t forget. None of those cheap Loonies and Twonies.
So two tickets was plenty. Daughter got to take her mother to the concert (or vice versa, really) and poor ol’ me had a night in Vancouver all to myself. Call it a win-win-win.
I reached out to a few curling clubs to see if they needed subs for their league games and, fortunately, one of them had someone going to the concert. Daughter wasn’t enamored when I suggested giving her ticket to a curler in order to ensure I could sub.
I’ve only once been to a concert where the attendees made noticeable dent in the culture and economy of the city, and that was when the Parrotheads invaded Las Vegas. However, Vegas is itself a tourist destination, and a tourist destination that caters to many of the same clandestine activities that Jimmy Buffett’s fans likely imbibe in. I doubt the Salt Lake Buffett concert had quite the same effect.
But, unlike Vancouver for Taylor Swift, Vegas didn’t shut down for Buffett. And its effect of Phoenix was probably zero.
Why do i mention Phoenix? Because it’s about as long of a drive from Vegas as Seattle is from Vancouver (when you take into account no customs agents on the Nevada-Arizona border). And let me tell you, Seattle was decimated by Taylor Swift being 130 miles away.
I thought I had an original idea for avoiding some of the costs and hassle of flying into Vancouver by flying into Seattle and driving into Canada.
While it might have been cheaper, and maybe even a little easier, it was far from “original.” Half of our flight was doing the exact same thing. And we weren’t the only ones.
I’m a Hertz Gold member. Usually that means I don’t have to stand in line or do any sort of checking in at most airports. I walk up, pick a car, and they print my contact on the way out of the parking garage.
This time, my name wasn’t listed on the big board. I thought maybe it was because my flight was delayed and they thought i was a no- show.
Nope. Turns out the Swifties had wiped the Seattle airport out of cars. Hertz literally didn’t have enough cars to do their normal “pick one of this row” and instead had to treat us specials like the plebs and send us to one specific stall where they’ve held on to one specific car for our reservation.
When I walked through the “Gold Section” that is usually awash with dozens of cars, it was like the parking lot of a bar at 8:00 am. How the hell many people need to be traveling to a concert if it wipes out the rental counter at an airport three hours away?
Technically, closer to four hours, because the border crossing was backed up, too. The Swiftie army bested the Mountie army.
Then there was the city of Vancouver itself. Here is just a small sampling of some of the “minor” ways they catered to the foreign invasion.
*The Capilano Suspension Bridge turned its usual Christmas Lights display into a Taylor Swift themed Christmas Light display.
*The donut place we stopped at in Gastown had three Swift-themed donuts.
*They turned the cruise ship terminal into an “official” merchandise store. If you’ve never been in a cruise terminal, they’re friggin ginormous. We peeked in – Wife and Daughter wanted to “pre-scout” what might be at the venue – but when we saw the line was probably an hour long, they figured they didn’t need to stand in two hour-long lines.
Most of these minor changes can be explained away as good ol’ capitalism, even if Canada is usually described as a socialist utopia. The pure mass of people at the Capilano bridge had to be worth their paying the licensing fee to pipe in some music. I would estimate 2,000 people were there. At $70 a pop.
I’ll note that the Bay Area didn’t completely shut down or reinvent itself when Taylor Swift played here. So either we’re more socialist than Vancouver or else most of the concert-goers were locals. Both are probably true.
In addition, Vancouver added a few “above and beyond” changes. They put up signs all around town featuring song titles, and also added bracelets to some of their statues.
There were long lines in front of each one, so again, maybe this can be chalked up to encouraging the Swifties to meander around town and spend money.
Check out this subtle change to the Vancouver sign:
I’m all for bringing in tourist dollars (sorry, Tourist Loonies), but don’t go changing your name, people! That would be like New Orleans renaming itself to Mardi Gras in February.
Oh, and they also changed the hourly tune on the famous Gastown steam clock from the Westminster chimes to “Shake It Off.”
No biggie, I’m sure they do that regularly. Let’s see, the last time they changed the steam clock chimes was… never. It’s never been done before. This is a city that’s hosted the friggin’ Olympics, but clearly that pales in comparison to a pop star performing a concert.
Needless to say, we spent most of the day traversing the city for all the photo ops. People were dressed to the nines as early as nine a.m, wearing short sparkly dresses with bare legs when it’s going to be a high in the mid-forties. Sorry, it was in Canada, so… seven degrees?
Again, the Parrotheads were all dressed in their Aloha gear throughout the day in Vegas, but all they had planned for the day was drinking by the pool.
In every line, they shared war stories like my grandpa used to, replacing “Were you Pacific or Europe?” with “Last night’s concert tonight’s?” Then they traded home-made friendship bracelets instead of beers.
The strangest exchange I saw was in line for the Swiftcouver sign. A woman went down the line asking for anyone going to that night’s performance. The first few had gone the night before, but she finally found a group.
She handed them a bracelet and didn’t want anything back. All she wanted was to know that the bracelet would make it to the concert.
That’s it. She didn’t want to meet up with them the following day to get it back. Didn’t even want confirmation until the ladies who received the bracelet asked for her phone number so they could send a picture of it to her. She blinked, as if that thought hadn’t occurred to her, then happily turned over her digits.
She was almost tearing up when explaining how important it was to her. I’ve seen Catholics less emotional about rosary beads blessed by the Pope.
The religious wars of the past will be the Swifties versus, I don’t know, Ariana Grande? Sabrina Carpenter?
If Tay-Tay is the Catholic Church in this metaphor, my money is on Gracie Abrams as her Martin Luther. She opened for Taylor Swift on this portion of the Eras tour, and evidently she has all the signs of an heir apparent.
As of right now, she’s still totally into the friendship bracelets. But bear in mind, Martin Luther originally sold indulgences, too.
**Addendum: Don’t want to turn this into one of my usual travelogues, but I did have a few gripes about Google. At the border, they directed me to a faster route. When I got there, I realized it less crowded because it was the Nexus lane, which is kinda like TSA pre-check for people who cross the border often. Since I obviously didn’t have Nexus, I had to turn back around and get in an even longer line than if I’d followed the street signs instead of Google.
**Addendum Two (1.7 in Imperial Units): My second Google gripe was that as soon as we crossed the border, Google Maps switched to metric. While I understand that Canada is on the metric system, meaning the signs will be in metric. But Google should know that I don’t speak metric, so telling me there’s a right turn coming up in 1.7 kilometers means about as much as saying it’s in twenty-blevin fizzlefarts. My weather app was smart enough to continue giving me the temperature in Fahrenheit and I wasn’t even logged in.
**Addendum (Taylor’s Version): How was the concert? Couldn’t tell you, but Wife and Daughter both thought it was wonderful. I believe them. On something like that, it’s easy to succumb to antici-pointment (when you’re looking forward to something so much that even a good time is seen as disappointing), but they were absolutely ecstatic. I’m sure you can find better reviews of it elsewhere, but Daughter might have just experienced the best night of her life. Not her life so far. Her entire life. Only seventy years of downhill to come.
**Addendum Four: Forget about the concert, how did my curling match go? This American held his own on an ice sheet full of Canadians. We won the game on our final shot
The Writing Wombat 