Story Time

This night was ridiculous. I think I had more ups and downs in one night than I've had in the past few years. Tonight I went to an Epica concert (opened by Daath and Blackguard) in Calgary. This is my tale of one hell of a night.

So yesterday I learned the venue changed from The Warehouse to Republik and I was freaking out for hours because half of my sources told me one and half told me the other. In the end I concluded that the venue was changed and slept on it. The next evening my boyfriend picks me up a little late. It wasn't a big deal since the concert didn't start until about 9 (the doors opened at 8). So we get to Republik, and it doesn't look too promising. No lights, door locked, boxes piled up in the building. We did a lap around the building and decided to check out Warehouse to see if ticketmaster just made a mistake with the venue information.

We arrive at the Warehouse with similar results, only about eight people were waiting outside, just as confused as us. So we waited, and waited, called both clubs with no answer, called ticketmaster (which was the equivalent of calling a rock in terms of helpfulness) and the waited more. Finally my boyfriend and I decided to check out Republik again, convinced we missed something. I took the number of one of the guys waiting at Warehouse in case we found the right place and we were off again (but not before having to pay for a parking ticket we only used for 30 minutes).

Arriving back at Republik we notice about five people wandering around. We ask if they were going to the concert and they said they couldn't find it either. So I decide to walk into a shady, underground gay bar on the other side of the building to ask about the club. I walk inside with the others and there's two guys inside standing around and they gave me the dirtiest looks ever. I waited to see if anyone was there to help. Finally I got fed up and just asked one of the dudes standing there if Republik still existed. They said no, it was gone for good.

Great. So we leave the creepy bar (just to be clear, it wasn't creepy because it was a gay bar, it was creepy because it was a shady little establishment in an otherwise abandoned building with scary people inside). When we get outside a guy going to the bar said that Republik moved down the street. We walked around the building and looked, and the freaking bar was across the street with a giant sign that said EPICA on it. My boyfriend and I both facepalmed and got back into his car. I called the guy from Warehouse and told him where it was, then we were off to look for a parking space.

Oh god the downtown parking. So we drive around a few blocks and see nothing, but private lots, reserved parking, 1 hour zones and taken parking spaces. After doing another loop around, we pass two guys beating up a third guys against a chain-link fence. Happy. So FINALLY we find a parking space (the guy was okay by the way, we saw all three walking away from it) and my boyfriend goes to pay. We leave and make our merry way to the club...FINALLY. On the way I pulled out the tickets and my id after helping another lost concert goer and we entered the club.

As I get my ticket ripped and a stamp on my wrist (of a Russian nesting doll of all pictures...) I realize I am missing $50 cash from my pocket. I figured it fell out of my pocket when I pulled my id out, so I ran back outside and all the way down the street looking for it. No such luck. Either it fell out before, someone picked it up or I didn't spot it. Someone's going to have a happy find at any rate.

So I lost my money I was going to use to buy a t-shirt. Thankfully my boyfriend had enough and was nice enough to donate to the t-shirt for Schwa fund. After a long and frustrating search I was ready to have my ears destroyed by a symphony of metal. The good news is we weren't technically late. The concert started about twenty minutes after we arrived.

The first band to go on, Deathguard, was pretty good. Good music, an appropriately growly voice and an awesome attitude. Their hair also looked like cotton candy when they headbanged in unison (the lighting in the club was blue and a pinkish red and they all had super long curly hair). Second band, Daath, had an obsession with spitting and spraying water from their mouths into the air...randomly. This bald guy standing next to us kept shaking his head and screaming WHY. It was during this portion of the show where the people up front got super hyper and were pushing and flailing everywhere.

Then it was Epica's turn, and this truly made my night if nothing else did. The band was fantastic, played old songs as well as new ones (including 3 of my favourites). I was impressed with Simone, who was all over the place on stage and still made all her cues and sounded fantastic. I think at one point she was having issues with a contact lens and she ran over to the side to get it fixed. As she was talking with the guy there she still hit all her cues between the sentences. Amusing and impressive.

After the concert my ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton, both my legs were stiff as hell and I had a sharp pain in my lower back, but it was definitely worth the hurt. We grabbed our jackets and hobbled out of the club back to the car. Halfway home we notice a ticket on the windshield. Apparently we parked in a handicap zone even though there were NO SIGNS, NO MARKINGS and in a three hour pay parking zone. If any markings were there, they had to have been under the snow, because there was nothing. The officer that gave it drew this strange little picture that made absolutely no sense. It looked like a house that had fallen on a road being squished by a garbage compacter. So thank you ridiculous ticket for being the icing on my chocolate turd cake of an evening.