unusual weekend

Leah was 'working' this weekend. As part of her job at the Evergreen Centre for street youth, she and the other volunteers got to 'simulate' homelessness by spending two nights and a day living on the street.

I ended up buying groceries on Friday night, and then renting Thumbsucker. I'm not sure why I picked that one... but it ended up being a whole lot better than I expected. And it isn't often you can say that about a movie with Keanu Reeves in it.

On Saturday I went to an elders' meeting, and then that night went to Sound Ministry, at Sanctuary.

On Sunday I went to meet Leah at Evergreen, where everyone was meeting for breakfast. I took some gluten-free pancakes so that she could eat. Afterwards we went home, and she slept while I did laundry. I also stopped by a Pedestrian Sunday event in Mirvish Village (does anyone actually call it that?!) to see the Don Scott Quartet. It was good to see a bunch of people that I haven't seen in FOREVER, even if it was only very briefly.

And then last night we went to see R.E.M. We had lawn seats in the back, which was a bit of a bummer, 'cause when it rains you get wet. Luckily it didn't rain much (despite the thunderstorm predictions), and the sky cleared up after the (surprisingly boring) opening sets by The National and Modest Mouse. It was fun to see R.E.M. live... Towards the end of the show we moved down to the back of the seated area, which we should have done much earlier.
The band is (unsurprisingly) very good live... they have been doing this for a while. They pretty much nail their songs, mostly sounding as good as they do on record. Funnily enough, this is also one of my main criticisms... there was very little reformatting of arrangements, or reinventing of songs for a live setting. If you watch the R.E.M. Live DVD, you pretty much know EXACTLY what to expect. The only surprises are which songs are going to be on the setlist. There are quite a few older songs getting played on this tour, which is neat, as well as most of the new album, and a handful of required hits...

Michael Stipe mentioned that this is the first show of the tour where he was sweating on stage, and that, as a Georgian, he was !$#%ing loving it. I AGREE.

All in all it was fun...