My party gathering for the show at the Moore on March 8th has ONE AVAILABLE TICKET! We were a party of five, but two of us had to back out. One of their tickets has now been claimed, but we still have one left! So if you think you might want to come to this show and you don’t already have arrangements, talk to me ASAP!
Because did I mention–SECOND ROW, Stage Bob? That’s almost close enough for the inimitable Mr. Hallett to hear us singing! So if you’ve ever wondered exactly how high I can boing when The Doyle yells VERTICAL MOVEMENT, now is your chance to find out!
And while we’re on the topic–another OKPer has just relayed to me on Facebook that she’s coming in for the show and is seeking parties interested in sharing her suite at the Moore hotel. So if you’re coming to the show (whether or not you want my group’s ticket!), and you need post-show crash space, talk to me and I’ll put you in touch with that other fan.
Great Big Sea is COMING. The Good Ship Vertical Movement will in our harbor soon! See you all at the show! :D
My Great Big Box of XX Goodness–more on this coming in my next post–arrived today! And it should surprise ABSOLUTELY NO ONE who has been paying attention to my passionate love of Quebecois trad this year that I am all over “Le Bon Vin”, the French song included in this box set!
The notes on this thing say that this song was originally recorded for the album The Hard and the Easy, about which I am hugely delighted since it’s yet another reason for me to be super-fond of that album. It wasn’t included at the time because Alan wasn’t comfortable with his French, apparently! But the notes also say that the B’ys got coaching in their French diction from a girl from New Brunswick, and as near as I can tell, she did a good job. I mean, at least to my Anglophone ears. ;D Online Quebecer friends of mine tell me Alan’s accent sounds quite bad to them, but on the other hand, friends in New Brunswick (I’m looking at YOU, !) tell me that from the standpoint of French spoken in Newfoundland, Alan’s accent is saner.
Me, speaking as an Anglophone fangirl with a watered-down Kentucky accent who’s deeply nervous about unleashing what I’m doing to French on any actual Francophones without direct permission, I just want to figure out the lyrics to this delightful thing so I can sing along. :D
Because I love this song. I LOVE IT SO. It’s weird to hear French lyrics without machine-gun podorythmie to support them (which is what I have trained my ear to expect with all of this Quebec trad I’m listening to), but it does have Séan’s rapid-fire bodhran which is ALWAYS awesome! And that explosion of instruments and Bob cutting loose on the accordion and full-throated harmony a couple verses in! And Alan letting out with a roar of “OH!” tearing into the bridge! This, my children, is what a Great Big Sea song for me is goddamn ABOUT in ANY language! :D
But unfortunately the box set does NOT include lyrics to it! So I am resorting to Mother Google to see if I can cobble together a lyrics transcription. I found this version and this version of the song, which are more or less giving me the chorus and the first couple of verses. But it’s sounding to me like Alan’s diverging hard from either of these lyrics sets.
And I call upon you, any fellow Great Big Sea fans who are better at French than I am, help me figure out these lyrics! Here’s what I’ve got–who can check me over and see what I’ve gotten wrong? And I KNOW this isn’t perfect, I was just aiming for a reasonable approximation of what it sounds like I’m hearing, and hopefully those of you with better French can sharpen this up! :D
Le bon vin m’endort, l’amour me réveille
Le bon vin m’endort, l’amour me réveille encore!
En passant par Paris, caressant la bouteille (bis)
Un de mes amis me dit à l’oreille, bon, bon, bon
Un de mes amis me dit à l’oreille (bis)
Prends bien garde à toi, à l’on poursuivre la belle, bon, bon, bon
Poursuit qui la vous, moi, je m’ai maux que d’elle (bis)
J’ai couché trois en l’ennui avec elle bon, bon, bon
Il y a trois garçons tous trois capitaines (bis)
L’un à Bordeaux, et l’autre à La Rochelle bon, bon, bon
L’un à Bordeaux, et l’autre à La Rochelle (bis)
L’autre à Versailles, à belle la connait bon, bon, bon
Attention all Seattle GBS fans! If you don’t know already, the B’ys just announced the first leg of their massive 2013 tour plans, including a show in Seattle at the Moore on March 8th, 2013!
Tickets for this show go on presale TOMORROW! You no longer need an account on greatbigsea.com to buy tickets–they removed site accounts with the launch of the new site. So you can hit the site at 10am tomorrow morning to get tickets.
HOWEVER, if you want in on a block of tickets with me specifically, please let me know ASAP! Otherwise I’ll hope to see you there!
ETA: DAMMIT! The presale as per usual falls right during my morning standup at work, and since it would be impolite of me to bail on the standup just to buy tickets, I ain’t going to do that. Also, will NOT be available to get tickets on my behalf, so I can’t get a block of tickets after all. :(
Seattle crowd, could I get a volunteer to get me a ticket? I will happily provide money via Paypal or whatever means you request. Talk to me!
And speaking of things that will involve so much awesome they will violate all laws of space and time, the most belovedest of my beloved B’ys, The Doyle Himself, is about to launch his solo tour for his forthcoming album. First stop?
RIGHT HERE IN SEATTLE, BABY! At the Tractor Tavern! :D
Be advised that tickets go on presale TOMORROW AT 10AM for greatbigsea.com members! If you’re in my usual social circles you’ve already seen me squealing about this all over the Net today, and you may have been been emailed to check on your level of interest in this show! will be buying tickets on my behalf tomorrow at 10am sharp, since it conflicts with my morning standup meeting at work. If you haven’t already checked in with me and you want in on this ticket purchase, let me know NOW!
If you’re going to be at the show anyway, please let me know as well because I’d love to look for known faces, and because showing our support for Alan in as big a group as possible will ROCK!
Dara and I started serious work on booking this last night, and discovered to our chagrin that the fares for cross-country Canada trains are prohibitively expensive! So our Trainventure is going to have significantly fewer trains than expected.
But that’s OKAY. Because this entire trip is going to brimming over with so much awesome that we may have to break some laws of physics to cram all of the awesome into two and a half weeks! Hey, I’ve got a supervillain for a spouse, if anybody can break laws of physics, it’ll be my beloved solarbird!
First up–Toronto, from roughly the 24th through the 26th of July! Agenda: enjoy the hospitality of cow, the very best bovine in the eastern provinces! Meet up with Susan, the most awesome Le Vent du Nord fan that ever awesomed, because we owe that woman a proper thanks for the wedding champagne! And there may even be a house concert featuring Dara at Chez Cow!
Next–Montreal, from roughly the 27th through the 30th of July! Agenda: meet framlingem and scrunchions! Convene the Independent Panel of Montreal Bagel Judges! Locate and raid the best possible music store to get me yet more Quebecois trad for my ever-growing collection, and bonus points if I can find anywhere that’ll sell me any album I’m missing with Éric Beaudry on it. :D Locate a bookstore and see if I’m brave enough to bring home some French SF/F! And, if at all possible, find and boing to any appropriate nearby source of podorythmie! (I note, O Internets, that there are TANTALIZINGLY OPEN HOLES in the tour schedules of Le Vent du Nord AND Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer AND De Temps Antan AND La Bottine Souriante and you had better believe that if ANY of them drop shows into this time frame, I am ALL OVER THEM.)
Next–Moncton, from July 30th through August 1st! Agenda: enjoy the company of brightbeak, and perhaps there will be another house concert! Pauline is flinging us a million awesome Moncton-area things we may be doing as well!
And last but not least–St. John’s, from August 1st through August 6th! Agenda: meet lethendy and any other local GBS fan crowd peeps! Absorb the general ambience and look for inspiration for Book 3 of the Kendis and Christopher books! Attend this which will, assuming that the booking of things goes well, is in extremely easy walking distance of this place where we want to stay!
And the crowning, shining glory of this entire Adventure: go to THIS because ZOMG GREAT BIG SEA IN NEWFOUNDLAND YES B’Y! Dara and I had previously been sure it would not be possible to top the magnificent awesomeness of our beloved B’ys at the Olympics in Vancouver. Our beloved B’ys on their home turf, with a Newfoundland crowd, is very likely the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY TO DO IT. You thought I got good altitude on La Danse Verticale for Le Vent? This concert’s Movement will not only be Vertical, it may well reach ORBIT.
Bookings of planes and trains and places to stay begins TONIGHT. Any of you in these places, Internets, who want to meet up with Dara and me–let us know! We look forward to seeing you all!
People, I am experiencing a potentially life-changing event here. I ain’t up to GBS levels of fangirling on Le Vent du Nord quite yet, but those lads from Quebec now very well and thoroughly have my attention, and it’s very significant that at an earlier point today, the number of LVN fan videos I’d added to my YouTube playlist had in fact outnumbered the Great Big Sea videos!
And that, my friends, is pure crazytalk. The lovely Monsieur Beaudry is laying down a very, very compelling case. But this is THE HONOR OF THE DOYLE at stake here. So I put out a call on Twitter and Facebook and Google Plus for people to hit me with their favorite GBS vids on YouTube–and I now repeat that call here! Link me up with your favorite Great Big Sea vids, people! Bonus points if they’re from shows I actually attended!
Remembering that had pointed me at a vid of hers I’d never looked at, I finally looked at that tonight. And I gotta tell you, you have never heard “Cod Liver Oil” until you have heard it performed by Murray Foster. Behold!
In which our heroine is super-late posting the last bit of the concert writeup from the 12th, she admits! But I beg your indulgence, my fellow GBS fans, for lo, I have been stricken this last week or so with the plague. STRICKEN, I tell you. Handsome and talented as The Doyle is, not even he can make me string coherent thoughts together when I’m in a Sudafed-and-Nyquil-induced coma. And I’m assuming y’all want me to finish this report off with something a bit more substantial than “mmmm Alan is so pretty mmmm”, anyway!
Things were a little hectic getting us out of the pub and over into the Moore, I fear–we lost track of ! Oops. But she did catch up with us, and all tickets were safely handed out in our party of seven, and our seats on row M on the right hand side of the main floor were secured.
This was, hands down, the biggest GBS fan outing I’d arranged in some time. I was juggling communication about it across four different channels–Facebook, Twitter, email, and the OKP–and five, really, if you count anything off-net. (This did, I am embarrassed to admit, make me a little crazy; apologies to those to whom I got more crazy than was warranted, and much gratitude to all as I kept a whole bunch of balls in the air to get the whole shebang going!) It wound up going in three, count ’em, three different waves all across Saturday afternoon and evening.
The obligatory Great Big Writeup of Great Big Swoonability is on the way, but I’d like to share this one pic I got during the show. Usually my iPhone’s less than useful for taking photos in an indoor concert situation–since I inevitably wind up with blurred figures in a wash of color and light.
Sometimes, though, it winds up looking really, REALLY cool. Like this pic!
God of Music and Light
And some of you may have heard rumors of a Certain Cake. What I’ll say about that right now is that the cake was not indeed a Lie. Stay tuned for more details on that cunning plan and how it was enacted!
