The Killers at the Saddledome and Visitors

As a bit of a change of pace, we booked tickets to go see The Killers this past Thursday. We were a bit worried that it would cut into trapping time, but we did it anyway. Over that week, it was especially stressful because we had to keep postponing our trapping due to the weather. There was still snow on the ground the night of the concert, so it all worked out anyway.

The three of us and Tracy headed out to Calgary in the afternoon. We found what looked to be a shifty Vietnamese place to eat for supper, but it actually turned out to be really good. I wanted to try one of their hot plate or hot pot meals, but we just didn’t have the time. After dinner, we found our way to a transit station where we could park our car for free and take the light-rail train a couple stops straight to the Saddledome.

The concert was opened, to our surprise, by Hot Hot Heat. I only knew a few songs off the radio and found those songs rather annoying, but they put on a great show. I think I’m going to rip the album from Nikhil, who really likes them and was very excited to be getting two awesome concerts for the price of one. They were a perfect sort of band to open for a band like The Killers since both bands have a lot of fun, high energy songs.

The Killers were in top form and played all the songs I wanted to hear. I was very excited to be seeing them since I wanted to go to the show in Montreal, but that was happening a few days after I had arrived here in Kananaskis. The Killers put on a great show, and I encourage all who like them even a bit to go and see them live. I really wished we had thought to book our tickets sooner, so that we could find ourselves closer to the action. The Saddledome feels much smaller than the Bell Centre, so we could still see very well. I would have loved to be on the floor. Although they are not my favourite band in the world, being on the floor would have allowed for a much greater atmosphere. I would have loved to be jumping up and down and dancing in the crowd. As it was, I only gave in and stood to dance during the encore despite the reluctance of my companions to do the same, but I would have preferred to be on my feet the entire time with everyone around me dancing.

Even though we went to Calgary on Thursday, we had to go again on Friday to get groceries and pick up Yeen Ten from the airport. Yeen Ten, for those of you who cannot keep track of all the people I talk about, is the post-doctoral student of our lab, and I have recently moved into her basement. Nikhil and I spent the majority of the day stuck in traffic, and I’m really starting to loathe trying to get anywhere in Calgary. I now understand why Crisia would so easily pass up a trip to Calgary.

When we came back, our trailer had doubled its number of occupants, as Yeen Ten would be joining us as well as two others from David Green’s lab at Concordia, Kari and Edith, both of whom I had met prior to leaving Concordia. Yeen Ten is only here until Wednesday; she is here to offer us advice and to check on us since Jack is too busy to do it himself (We also like to think it’s because he trusts us). She will be back at the end of July to do some of her own work. Kari is only here to show Edith around for about a week before they head off to Edmonton. Edith will be joining us again, I think, towards the end of June.

Updates: I had added pictures of the snow we’ve been getting this past week. It’s mostly gone now except for some areas in the mountains. If you want to see the pictures of the PG-13 snowman Tracy, Kurt, Nikhil, Crisia, and I made, please let me know. I have kept those pictures unlisted because they are not suitable for all viewers. There are also some pictures from the Killers concert. We took a video from Crisia’s camera that turned out quite well considering how far we were. We could actually see better from the camera than we could with our own eyes. The sound, however, is not all that great. I’ve got the video up with my pictures; it's not as good shrunk down. Since I couldn't figure out how to embed it in the blog, here’s the best video from youtube that I found from the concert.