I wouldn't say that Edmonton is a musical wasteland — far from it, in fact. There are plenty of great bands who make their way through our sleepy little burg. Unfortunately, they usually are not bands I want to see, or they tend to touch down in the middle of the week when there is insufficient time to recover after partying it up right.
So one is often left with the option of travelling elsewhere to see bands one really wants to see. So it is with myself and Bloc Party.
I have considered no less than four separate voyages to see this band live, and each time, a monkey wrench has been thrown into the plans.
First, there was Portland last fall. I can't remember why I didn't go, but I am glad I didn't. This was while they were touring with Panic! At the Disco, and it turns out they had to drop out of that tour in Atlanta after the drummer suffered a collapsed lung.
This past February, a friend and I were making plans to go to San Francisco to see them. Airfare was fairly cheap, as were hostel rooms, and she knew of a neat bookstore to check out along the way. The only snag was her work schedule, and by the time that was ironed out, the price of airfare had gone through the roof.
Then there was Denver — the show actually goes down next Tuesday, June 12. But I won't be there. Again, I waited a bit too long to book, and the price shot up. Plus it's barely been three weeks since I last took a week off for my brother's wedding, so I wasn't sure how well more time off in such short order would go over.
At this point, I ordered a Bloc Party T-shirt and a DVD off the Internet — which, curiously, have yet to arrive — and said, "Fuck it. This will have to do."
But then I briefly flirted with the notion of going to the Las Vegas show on June 13. But again, it's too short of notice, and I'm not exactly sure if I have enough cash lying around to make it down there.
So, I will wait around in my T-shirt, watching my DVD, and hoping against hope Bloc Party will someday venture a little further north, where I need not spend much money nor book time off work in order to see them live.
In the meantime, one of my favourite tracks from Silent Alarm ...
