Here Comes the Sun, and Copious Amounts of Rock and/or Roll.

At last, at long glorious last, spring has arrived in Sackville. Today is easily the warmest, sunniest day of the year thus far: people are out playing hacky sack outside, while others are walking through the waterfowl park in shorts or biking through the quad. It's like a recruitment brochure come to life.

It's certainly a far cry from last night's rain and at 40-5o km/h winds, which I had to walk through twice. You see, I turned 19 on Wednesday, so the bars of Sackville are now officially my playground. My boozy, licensed playground. I decided to celebrate by taking one of the biggest concerts to hit George's Roadhouse this year - Constantines, with opening acts Jon-Rae and the River and local heroes Shotgun and Jaybird. I went down to George's in the middle of a windstorm that was ripping branches from trees and pulling sheet metal from roofs. I arrived, showed them my ID which had just been done that morning (the photo on which makes me look quite, ahem, chemically enhanced), and I got in. Shotgun and Jaybird hadn't gone on yet, so I had a glass of Clancy's and chatted with some friends. That's when the music started. Suffice to say, the show was awesome, lasting until around quarter to 2. I'm working on a full review for the Argosy, but for now I'll give you a taste of the rock through the magic of YouTube.

Here's a clip of Constantines performing "Hotline Operator" in 2005. I couldn't find a clip of my favorite song, "On to You," but you can get it here (click to listen, right click and hit 'save target as' to download - don't worry, it's legit).



Here's Jon-Rae and the River, performing in Toronto during a January snowfall. Watch for people on stilts.



One of my favorite moments of the night was when Jon-Rae and the River played a great cover of The Replacements' glorious "Bastards of Young" at the end of their set. If you've never heard it before, check the music video here:



And finally, here's Sackville's Shotgun and Jaybird during the PEI leg of this tour. The song is "Two and Two is Four".



So that was the show. Tonight I'm going to check out Jazz at Jennings, a jazz band concert at our dining hall. Aside from playing the usual jazz standards, there will also be covers of the Beatles, Billy Joel and Bjork (!). As for the rest of the weekend, I'll be rehearsing for a live play reading and getting ready for the end of the year. Hope you have a good weekend, and I'll see you Wednesday.