Last weekend was delicious Thanksgiving long weekend for us Canadians, but the awesome dinners I got three days in a row are actually the least incredible things that happened over the weekend.
Not to downplay those dinners, of course. Many people worked hard to prepare them, and I appreciate all that effort. In fact, you might even say that I give them my thanks for stuffing me so full that I literally rolled out of bed on Tuesday morning.
The big news, as you might be aware, was that Pokémon X and Y launched on Saturday. I was so damn excited about them, in fact, that my youngest brother and I decided to attend the midnight launch at our local used games store. Wifey tagged along for the ride too, but I was not able to convince her to start her own journey with Pokémon. Some day…
We figured it’d be a pretty low-key thing, because I guess neither of us know many Pokémon players in the city. Also, like I said, it’s a little local place. But the turnout was pretty amazing! I’d say that there were at least 60 or 70 people there. Which is low-key compared to the official Nintendo launch event in Toronto, but still way more than we’d expected. There wasn’t much more to the evening than waiting in line for half an hour and then merrily skipping out of the store with games in hand, but it was still a pretty fun experience.
And so that’s what I did all weekend when I wasn’t out Thanksgiving binging.
Except for Monday night, which was just wonderful enough to outshine a new Pokémon game as the best part of my long weekend. Yes, you read that right. And that totally awesome thing was the opportunity to go see Joe Satriani.
I first heard that he would be playing here back in the summer, but there was no way that I could justify dropping enough cash for tickets. I so desperately wanted to go, as I’ve been a Satch fan since the very first time I heard “Surfing With the Alien” and he was easily on my top 5 list of concerts to see. (The rest: Matt Good again, Tom Petty, Tonight Alive, and Go Radio)
A miracle happened though, and my in-laws bought me tickets for my birthday. It was way more than they should have spent, but it is quite possibly the best birthday gift I’ve ever received. At the very least it’s neck-and-neck with Life and an NES.
It doesn’t really need saying, but the concert was fantastic. I didn’t recognise a lot of the songs because I don’t have the new record (Unstoppable Momentum), but maybe that’s even better, as I got to experience a bunch of material for the first time live. “Satch Boogie” and “Surfing With the Alien” were in the set, and that’s all I could really ask for. And the encore… oh, the encore. Let’s just say that even my wedding day may not have been as emotional a day as the day I was actually in the damn crowd for “Crowd Chant.”
I don’t go to very many concerts, but the ones I go to are so damn good. And now that that’s all said, I have to get back to work. And by “work”, I mean “Pokémon.” Because I totally don’t type these things out at work.