hanging out with josh radin, originally uploaded by benaston.

As any self respecting tourist would, on the day after Canada Day, today we took a trip on the wild side and made it all the way into Vancouver. It was indeed a wild time; for starters, my flip flop broke so I had to go all hippy and go bare foot; like a bear with no bearskin..

The hippyness didn’t end there though. After crepes, bellinis, honey lagers (not as good as Fullers) and more food, we stood in a line for a long time outside the Commodore Ballroom waiting for tickets for Joshua Radin and the uber hip Xavier Rudd.

It was good to see Josh again. In fact, as you can see, these days we’re practically best buds. It was all a bit rushed though, and with a half hour supporting slot, he didn’t have time to work his magic; the Commodore crowd was a bit of a let down – there wasn’t a whole lotta love and the old acoustic unplugged thing, along with a few of his new songs fell on its face a bit. Thankfully, a few classics, Closer, and Winter made it worth the trip to see him.

Then came Rudd. It has to be said that I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a whole Xavier Rudd song all the way through; they’re not exactly known for their brevity though, are they? It soon became apparent that the reason Josh wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea was because they were a bit too stoned and hippy for him.

Cue Rudd, the spliffs are unveiled across the room and an awesome world music come reggae rock cacaphony begins. He does some amazing things, combining didgeridoo, slide guitar, and drums to make what can really only be described as reggae music for white people. Of course with reggae comes dancing, and there was more than a healthy sprinkling of that. Not just any kind of white reggae dancing, but odly enough it seemed that it was all very much influenced by Kate Bush a la Wuthering Heights. Weird.

Let’s save the planet.

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