Another drive in big blue Agnes

Sept. 22 '07
On the drive from Airdrie to Wainwright, Alberta, the fields, tractors, oil wells, grain elevators, trains, and whiz of broken yellow lines are constant.

We all sit in silence, keeping to ourselves. It's been a bit too long since our last laundromat, and the van is beginning to smell a bit like hockey gear. We sit quietly together, but alone with our thoughts and pastimes. Colin is concocting music with the Garage Band program on his Mac, John is playing Mario on his Nintendo DS, Rob is reading, Allister is driving, and I write and listen to The Grateful Dead.

Suddenly we hear a whooshing sound past our open windows, John gasps with fear. Allister chuckles, it was the first vehicle we drove by in a while, and it happened to be a large tractor trailer. The first disruption from the quiet inside triggers endorphins, and we all become a little bit more aware.

Our first stop arrives shortly. Everyone gets a snack at the gas station. Along with my V8 and shelled sunflower seeds, I pick up 20Th Century Masters The Millennium Collection, The Best of Sublime. Nine dollars and ninety nine cents for an album that would have gone for $20 a couple of years ago. Off to Wainwright.

Wainwright, Alberta is a small town of approximately five or six thousand people. Many of the local folk make their money working on trains, or working for the military.

In a small hard-working town like this, you may not be surprised to find that the Communiplex Theatre has a history of producing high quality local theatre, and for bringing in talent from all over Canada. Its amphitheatre style seating allows for great connectivity between the audience and the venue--I like looking up to the audience. The theatre's almost full house was extremely receptive to humour and detail in the music.

We went for a classic first set with a couple of songs we hadn't played in a while. Beautiful Mistake is a cheeky song about love at first sight, the cheekiness becomes obvious mid-song when John and Colin break into a kazoo duel. Ola, is an irreverent look at ignorant youths visiting Spain, only knowing three phrases in Spanish. Its incoherent rhymes and foolish word play is both the reason we don't play it often, and the reason we must play it sometimes. On this night, everyone got the joke.

In all, it was a good night, and another reminder of why we opt to play theatres so often, theatre audiences tend to have keen ears.

Check out my review of the Best of Sublime: http://thevoyagereview.blogspot.com/2007/09/best-of-sublime-35-stars.html


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