Here's some info for all you Canadians out there who are missing your heroes...

We are Aussies but have a little true north in us after living in Canada for a while. We caught Blue Rodeo in Barooga (yes we wondered where Barooga was too) Turns out it was five hours drive but that was a small price to pay to see our favourite band on our territory, oh and the whitlams were there too. There was about 400.5 people there, broken down as follows:

Blue Rodeo = 5.5 (incl. one pregnant woman - make it 11.5 if you count the band)
The Whitlams = 395

Although we were heavily outnumbered it didn't stop us making our presence felt. Jim's opening line was understated: "Hi. We're from Canada" to which we reply "WoooooHoooooo". Jim then instructs the rest of the crowd to take their lead from us.

The show was great, but sadly no "Better off as we are", despite repeated attempts at coercion.

We said hi to Greg before the show and mentioned St.Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne. He asked "who was St.Kilda?" and wtf sort of question is that? If any one knows please tell me.

Later on got a chance to say hi to Jim, and I asked about where they were playing next. Turns out to be another middle of nowhere place another 5 hours drive away! So I asked if we drove that far, would they play better off as we are for us. Jim says "Sure. We can play anything" and I said "yeah but you can't sing try anymore" - this is the self deprecating humour we aussies like. Jim just laughed.

(side note: the barman had no lemons to go with tequila.. so you get a feel for the venue)

So we drive to Lower Tarwin, and see them the next night. The pics on the left are from this show. I heard a rumour the whitlams were there too but can't substantiate that one.

Audience breakdown:

Blue Rodeo: 4.51 (baby loves to rock!)
The Whitlams: 100 farmers, 10 security guys, and a few sheep in a ute out front. Here's the venue pic:

Greg opens up with: "Hi. We're from Canada, we are just going to play quietly here in the corner and we won't interrupt your game of pool"

(we smirk to ourselves that this could only happen in Oz)

Anyway... the play list was amended to our specifications once our presence was noted. We felt this appropriate! It was great to hear better off as we are, since the live version kicks arse (translation: ass). Diamond Mine was another standout since we never heard it before, so had to buy a CD with that one on it.

We never went to a gig where the band wanted to say hi to us, so when the roady said "hang around Jim wants to say hi.." we thought we would indulge him (we are actually too cool to admit that it was a major buzz :-) Little things like this are what make the band so great, and it's why they stand out from the rest.

It is now 11pm, the "other band" are not on yet, but we have ANOTHER 5 hour drive home and work at 8:30...

Thanks Blue Rodeo for an amzing weekend of kick arse Canadian music.

Come back soon!

PS hi Jane in Toronto! Jim if by some miracle you read this, please open with "This is for you Jane" when you sing falling down blue at Stardust.