revid | Mar. 17th, 2008

(Random aside: I find it amusing that the words to the Canadian National Anthem are completely different in English and French. And no, not just because they're two different languages...they're completely different lyrics.)

As alluded to by

and_ed, I'm very excited to be taking a little excursion to the Great White North at the end of June. It started out as a fantasy, as these things seem to do with me, followed by a 'why the hell not,' then suddenly morphed into a reality.

After seeing Matthew Good live last week, my appreciation for his music increased a gazillion fold. (Everyone who has ever had this happen to them with an artist, raise your hand. That's what I thought.) This was a solo acoustic tour, just Matt and a guitar, but he will be touring Canada this summer with a full band. Unless his next CD spawns a monster hit in the US, which is unlikely since his records aren't even released in the US(!), he'll never be able to put on an electric tour in this country. So the only way I'll ever be able to see Matt with a band is to go to Canada, right?

Turns out the Vancouver show only has a few cruddy seats left, because it's his home town. So I start thinking about how I could get to Victoria, and OMG--Horizon Air flies direct from Seattle to Victoria, and I have 40,000 FF miles on Alaska/Horizon just burning a hole in my pocket! And GA tix are still available! And the thing that seals the deal:

and_ed can go to the show with me!!!

And that's how I went from random musing to having airline tickets & concert tickets & hotel reservations in about an hour and a half. I'll fly out on 26 June, go to show on 27 June, bum around Victoria with Barb on the 28th, and fly home the next day. And the show on the 27th is the last show on the tour and 2 days before Matt's birthday, so I'm hoping it's special.

Barb is not a big Matthew Good fan, so she's being a great sport about it, but she's willing to learn. So here is a Matthew Good Sampler that I put together. (Actually, it's Matthew Good solo and the Matthew Good Band, but it's kinda like Tom Petty solo and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers -- no difference to me!) I didn't think too hard about the songs I chose. I wanted to keep it to an hour or so, so I picked a few early songs (Alabama Hotel, Haven't Slept in Years -- Yep, that's where the fic title came from), a couple hits (Appartitions, Hello Time Bomb), a couple new songs (Born Losers, 99%), and a couple just because I like them (Running for Home, Prime Time Deliverance.) I put in two live tracks as well. The first is a song, A Silent Army in the Trees, that will probably be on his next CD.

So anyway: Matthew Good Sampler 97MB