Today was the big Victoria concert day, and I headed south from the Comox Valley for what was going to be a pretty memorable day—although not always in the ways I expected.
Before I get into the actual details of the trip and the event, let me relay what happened in the Comox Valley while I was away!
Bobby managed to scrape his palm so my wife made him a set of touch-safe protective gloves! (see photo to the right). Katie said that he apparently fell of a chair???
Later today he went to the pool with Dominic. My wife dropped them off. Later in the day he did some editing on the computer for Katie.
Before really getting underway, I stopped at McDonald’s and dropped off some Filipino treats and a card for the crew.
By the time I reached Duncan I had a Burger King Whopper—the first one I’d had in something like two years.
I eventually arrived in Victoria and made my way to the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre. I had already reserved my parking, and because I had the VIP package I had been instructed to check in at 5:30 p.m., well before the regular doors opened at 6:30 and the concert began at 7:30.
The VIP experience wasn’t particularly well organized. There was a lot of waiting around and uncertainty about what was happening, and it certainly wasn’t the polished experience I had imagined when I spent the money for the VIP ticket. One surprise that evening was that Chilliwack didn’t perform as originally scheduled because of illness. Kim Mitchell appeared instead. I had a Row 2 seat and got to see Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings performing together at this stage of their lives.
Of course, the main reason I had bought the VIP package was the opportunity to meet Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings. I had thought quite a bit beforehand about what I wanted to say. I even had the personal connection involving Randy’s relative in Winnipeg—the cousin I met in church and had told me about teaching Randy his first three guitar chords. I had imagined that might spark an interesting little conversation.
The actual meet-and-greet happened after the concert, when Randy and Burton understandably looked tired. They were sitting on stools for the photographs, and everything moved extremely quickly. An attendant took my camera, I was positioned between Randy and Burton, the picture was taken, and almost immediately it was, “Next.”
Not the “Dream Meeting” that I had envisioned… 🙁