Jew Cartel, what, is that a Hasidic act?

   I know, it's a bad joke. At least it's not mine. Came from the guy from Whitestarr in the funny hat who was carrying a mike around and hamming for the camera before the show last night... But wait - I'm getting ahead of myself.

   Matt and I headed downtown shortly after school let out. I had whipped up a custom CD to listen to in the car on the way down that included Toby Rand's performance of Throw It Away, Ryan Star's performance of Back Of Your Car, and Storm Large's performance of (What The [What] Is) Ladylike (caution - explicit lyrics in the version at that link). Also on the CD were a couple of other songs Matt likes by Evanesence, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix. I threw in a couple of gems for him to discover, too, like the Willie Dixon rendition of I Can't Quit You Baby, and an old Leadbelly performance of Gallows Pole. I'm sly like that. He's a big Led Zeppelin fan, and those raised his eyebrows a bit.
   By some hugely entertaining coincidence, the CD included the song It Doesn't Really Matter, by Platinum Blonde - a Canadian band who had some success in the eighties - and the club we were going to (I found out later) was owned by Mark Holmes, the former lead singer of that band.

   After a quick stop at McDonalds for some McNuggets, McFries, and McRootbeer, we hopped back into the car, where Matt amused himself, and annoyed me, by playing the three songs from Rockstar, and Baba O'Reilly, over and over again until we got to the parking lot around the corner from the club. I had my camera with me, but as I mentioned yesterday, I didn't want to get to the club and find out I couldn't take it in, so I gave them another call and asked. No cameras, I was told, too bad, so sad, so I left it in the car and we set off to line up out front of the club.
   Arriving at the club just before 6:30 (doors opened at 7:00, but we wanted a good spot), we were right near the front of the line, behind two women, who were chatting with a young man on the inside of the barricade, and two young teenage girls. The first thing I noticed was the camera hanging around the neck of the woman at the very front. The second thing I noticed was that the guy she was talking to was actually Toby Rand.
   Matt nudged me, and pointed to him, and I called out, "hey, there's the man, himself," which drew a glance from him, and nothing more. I leaned in towards the girls in front of us and asked, "did you guys write 'Evs' on your eyelids for Toby?" They giggled, and shook their heads, but I caught Toby's attention again.

   "Evs" is the current Australian slang for "whatever" that Toby introduced to America on the Rockstar: Supernova show, and has become somewhat of a rallying cry for his fans. My mention of it drew his full attention, and I nudged Matt and said, "show him your hand." Matt, you see, had written "Evs" on himself, and when he flashed his palm Toby jumped the barrier and came down to see us.
   Let me tell you something, this is one great guy. He went straight up to Matthew, shook his hand, asked his name, and thanked us for coming to the show. He commented on how cold it was here, but said he loved Canada. It felt like home, he said, because of how friendly the people were. Then he shivered, thanked us again for coming, hopped back over the barrier, and joined a couple of band mates.
   They were on the way to a little pub across the street to get away from the hubbub inside the club for a quiet pint before the show started, but when a couple more girls in the line behind us called out to him, and waved, he came running right back up, signed autographs for them, posed for pictures (more cameras - grrrr!), and talked to them for several minutes, too. Class act.
   At this time, I would just like to mention that we Canadians are a bit of a class act, too. After Toby ran off to the pub for a pint with his buddies, his location was repeatedly pointed out to new people in the lineup. Heck, we could even see him through the bar windows, but no one went over and bugged him while he was hanging out with his mates. The man's gotta have a life of his own, too, right?

   More to come later...

tags: Family, Music