Don't have to look up at the stars
11:28 AM |

One of the things I sorely miss about Ottawa living is the abundance of live musical thrills. Jazz fest under the stars in the summer, concerts of up and comers at grimy bars full of people looking the same trying to look different and hockey stadium sellout shows that cost way too much.
Right after I moved, Kanye West played an outdoor show, and I was aching to see him live. My little sister went with my Dad (she’s still young enough that his company was not embarrassing). She called me from her cell phone and held it up towards the speakers so that from 5,500 km away I could hear the screaming fans, pounding base and lyrical rapidity of Kanye’s performance of Gold Digger. It was nowhere near as cool as being there, but it wasn’t a half-bad way to get a sense of the show I was missing.
Since then my sister called me from the Toronto Spice Girls Concert and I nearly lost my mind. I was baby spice at my friends’ grade 7 Spice Girls sleepover party, and we sang Spice Girls songs at the Junior High talent show. I remember playing their CD to my then 3-year-old sister, teaching her the words to “Stop.” And there I was a few weeks ago listening to them sing “Wannabe” a decade after their prime with my 13-year-old sister sitting in the 100-section, and me sitting on my bed.
Last night my brother called me from the Justin Nozuka concert in Ottawa at Babylon, which he attended with his girlfriend and my sister. I clued him in to the tour date after checking with doubtful hope that Justin Nozuka would for some reason play a Whitehorse show. No suck luck. But hearing him strum and sing the words to my new favourite song “After Tonight,” I melted both at the magical tune and my siblings’ heart-warming efforts to make me feel included.
The cell-phone can never come close to duplicating the tears-to-my-eyes feeling of hearing Coldplay perform Clocks in a giant arena, nor the beauty of Jason Mraz sitting cross-legged on a purple round cushion playing “Plane.” Those are memories I’ll just have to hold onto until I’m once again in a musical tour date locale.
But I thank my family for making me feel like I’m not so far away.

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