I’ve been a raving fangirl for Great Big Sea from Newfoundland since I discovered them in 2000. And I post about them a LOT.
I didn’t get too many pics during the show since I’m still learning the fine art of how to do a picture on the iPhone that doesn’t suck–and then how to actually save it in the best possible format. However, I’m pretty happy with this one of my B’ys! As you can see I wasn’t too far back from the stage, with only a small number of fans in front of us.
B'ys of Awesomeness
Just got back from the zoo, you guys! Picoreview: delightful as always, especially up in the dancing area surrounded by fellow OKPers and other people ready, willing, and able to bounce like crazy along with our B’ys.
Huge shoutouts to 
mamishkasksouthjennygriffeejessicackathryntllachglintechnoshamanladyallynspazzkatsolarbird
Also huge shoutouts to sticcklerseattlesparksauntmonkey
Even saw and greeted several OKPers besides sticckler: shelleyroberts, shoegirl, and loulabelle! And there was a lady whose name I didn’t get who was kind enough to compliment my singing as I was belting out harmony during “Chemical Worker’s Song”! Thank you, kind lady!
But! EXTRA DOUBLE AWESOME SHOUTOUTS back to sksouthsolarbird
There is of course a longer full show review post coming, but that’ll be tomorrow, after I have my brain back. Watch this space for the fully detailed squee!
Today’s Excellent Plan of Excellence:
spazzkatsolarbirdkathryntI love this plan! I’m proud to be a part of it!
And now, off to the store to put my plan in motion! ETA: Store accomplished! Soon there will be ZOO!
T minus 7 days and counting until the B’ys are HERE for the Zoo show next week!
solarbirdspazzkatmamishkajennygriffeetechnoshamanladyallynjessicackathryntllachglinsksouth
The Cascadian Vertical Movement team (which y’all may recall totally took the Gold medal this past February) will also have the Junior Auxiliary of Lillian and Moira! I am looking forward to this with great, great glee. These are the children who beg me to play “Donkey Riding” on the Great Big DVD whenever they come over to my house, so I am VERY much anticipating the looks on their little faces when they realize holy crap Great Big Sea is real!
This is going to be huge, huge fun. And I’m taking that day off from work, too, so will be looking into a pre-show lunch and zoo thing of some sort! If you’re not directly involved with the herd I’m organizing but you are planning to be at the show, keep an eye out for me! Better yet, drop me a comment and let me know when and where you’ll be so I can keep an eye out for you, too!
*runs around in anticipatory circles* *practices her Vertical Movement* *puts SRS BZNZ consideration into what new swag to buy now that she’s dropped 25 pounds and TOTALLY needs a new, smaller GBS shirt*
I am ready, B’ys! BRING IT!
Check this out, you guys: my beloved B’ys have announced a video karaoke contest! They are handing out instrumental tracks for three of the songs off the new album and telling people to get creative with video responses!
Anybody local want in on this with me? 😀
(I wonder if it’d still count as karaoke if you actually learned the chords to the songs… *eyes guitar meaningfully*)
H/t to jesshartley
ETA: My favorite part of the whole contest description: Do you ever sing along with GBS when no one is looking? Yes. YES I DO. Also when random passersby are looking, when an entire crowd of my fellow GBS fans are looking, when solarbird
RIGHT THEN! spazzkat
My review, overall? Um. Fair warning that if you didn’t care for Fortune’s Favour, you probably won’t care for this album either. There’s a lot of the same feel to its production and mixing, in that it feels slicker than older GBS albums have done, and the B’ys are experimenting with vocal styles and types of songs they haven’t historically played with. Which is awesome if you’re a band that’s had ten CDs and you need to mix stuff up a bit to keep it fresh–but if you’re a long-time fan who signed on for the tasty, tasty trad, this takes quite a bit of getting used to.
That said, there are so far two confirmed tracks I’ll be coming back to in regular rotation, “Nothing But a Song” and “Safe Upon the Shore”. There are four others that are potential repeat plays. This is about the same for me as Fortune’s Favour, which gave me ultimately only five songs I regularly go back and replay on the Favorites playlist. And both of these are pretty low overall for GBS albums for me. I’ll have to see how my opinion changes as I play through the album a few more times!
Track-by-track reactions behind the cut.
This just in, for those of you who aren’t members of greatbigsea.com and/or not on the band’s mailing list: they’re playing the Woodland Park Zoo again this summer! The show date is July 29th, and tickets go on pre-sale for members of greatbigsea.com this Friday the 23rd!
I am of course ALL OVER THIS. Any local people want me to snag tickets, please to sing out NOW. I’m pretty sure I’ll be limited to eight, and three of them will already be spoken for since I’ll be buying for myself, , and .
Anybody who doesn’t need me to buy tickets but will be at the show anyway, please also sing out because I’d love to know who to look out for. If you didn’t go to the zoo show they did in 2007, seriously, consider going to this, because it’ll be a kid-friendly setting AND outdoors and the zoo is an awesome place to see the B’ys perform. Do please note that July 29th is a Thursday, if you need to rearrange your work schedule–and according to the band’s site’s tour page, the doors (well, the concert area, in this case) will open at 5pm and the show will start at 6pm.
Looking forward to seeing you all there! 🙂
ETA: All of my ticket slots are claimed now! But don’t let that stop you from joining the greatbigsea.com site and jumping in on the presale yourself. Signup’s free, and sometimes being a site member means you can get advance goodies on album releases as well!