As I mentioned a few days ago, once in a while, there is just too much going on. I'm trying to throw in a few book readings here and there (in fact there is one next Monday), and I saw that Madeline Thien will be at Queen Books in Nov., but this is the same date as The Beaches concert.* It's a bit of a toss-up, but I think The Beaches will be more interesting/appealing overall, though of course more expensive (even assuming I bought a hard cover and had Thien sign it). But it is a close thing, and I wish somehow I could do both, for instance if the reading is shuffled to a different day.
One of the droller instances of this was that I had booked a ticket to see the TSO playing Korngold (on a Thurs. I believe) when I had really wanted to go to the North York venue because of the scheduled pre-show concert, but it was completely sold out. Eventually, I checked again and seats had miraculously opened up, but I just bought a new ticket and didn't transfer the old one. That was a mistake of course.
Anyway, I was looking through the TSO booklet to see if there was another concert to go see instead, I saw that NAC Orchestra was coming to town in Feb., and they were playing Morlock's "My Name is Amanda Todd" (which I've seen one but would like to see again) and Beethoven's 3rd Symphony. This sounded like a pretty good concert, and I was getting ready to call the TSO when I decided I really ought to check first if I already had something booked for that day. It turns out that is when I am seeing The Cowboy Junkies, so that ruled the NAC Orchestra concert out. I still haven't settled on what I will see instead, though possibly Beethoven's 5th, which weirdly enough is only playing up in North York!
Then I started looking around to see what were the other dates in the NAC Orchestra's national tour. If for instance they were playing in Hamilton or Kingston, but it is surprisingly hard to track this info down. Eventually I was redirected to their shows in Ottawa, and I saw that next week they have a couple of concerts where they are playing the Morlock piece, as well as Shostakovich's Violin Concerto #1 and Sibelius's Symphony #2. I debated it for a while and decided that I could get a fair bit of work on the train, so I would run up to Ottawa to see the concert! As a bonus, my son and his girlfriend decided they would go as well, so that sort of makes the trip worth it.
Coming back, I will be on the Red Arrow bus. (If you get the cheapest ticket with no exchanges possible, it is only $25!) I probably will get much less work in, though there is one work call I can take.
I'll probably stop by the National Gallery, though there are a couple of exhibits that don't open up until mid Dec., so I'll probably have to go again (in the winter!) to check those out before they close. Presumably, this trip will be over some weekend... I had started thinking about what I would read. If I had the luxury of reading in both directions, I would probably take Skvorecky's The Bride of Texas (and then Fontane's After the Storm in the follow-up winter trip), but I'll pick something a bit shorter (and with bigger print, which rules out Canetti's Auto-da-Fé) for the bus ride back. I'm sort of torn between Russo's Empire Falls (which has been waiting for a while) and McCullers's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (which I picked up only a few days ago). I might read just a few pages of each and decide which grabs me more.
Anyway, it is completely silly to drop everything and run up for a concert, but I decided to do it anyway. I will need to try to hit the Rex either on the Friday after I get back or more likely on Sat. Then I realized that the following week is booked absolutely solid so that I can't see Pat LaBarbara, Kirk MacDonald and Neil Swainson doing some Coltrane tribute concert. I think I'll have to switch my tickets for Waiting for Godot to the following week and see the Sat. set. I'll probably do that, assuming Coal Mine doesn't hassle me too much over the ticket exchange. For whatever reason, Sept. is insanely busy, but Oct. and Nov. are much more reasonable.
* I actually swung by Scotiabank Arena to see if I could stop in at the box office and avoid some fees (for that Beaches concert). However, their ticket windows are only open on the days when there are events, which then means there are enormous lines of people trying to see the show. Basically, it is a way of claiming to have an alternative (to TicketMaster) but then not actually following through. Plus, most venues don't mess around with paper tickets anyway, so they still funnel you through TM even if you are standing right in front of them, and you still pay all the fees. Last night happened to be a Lady Gaga concert, and the lines were so long (despite the fact that there has been almost no advertising of this concert) that I just gave up.
On the other hand, just before this I was able to deal with getting a refund on a Via ticket by going over to Union Station, and the woman said that this had to be handled in person, despite their website saying to call some customer service number!
Edit (9/12): Maybe it is just as well that I held off, deterred by the long lines. I probed a bit more into The Beaches back catalog and listened to a couple of their live performances, and it is all a bit flat to me in the sense that most songs sound like the others; I think I probably would be better off at the Thien reading after all.
I have booked the Ottawa getaway. Naturally a bunch of work meetings popped up at the last minute, and I will see how many of them I can do on the train or hanging out at the Via station in Ottawa. Otherwise, I will just have to miss them.
I did get my ticket switched for Coal Mine, so will go to the Rex instead on the Sat. I'm pretty sure it's going to sell out. I had hoped to get the cheaper seat behind a post (the view is actually fine surprisingly) but those seats were gone, so I reserved a seat off to the side where I normally sit. It's just that it was a bit more than I had hoped to pay... I'll see about going to Barry Elmes as well at the tail end of next week, but I don't plan on reserving, as I don't think these shows will completely sell out. Hopefully that's the right decision...
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