i walked out of that concert completely fried due to minimal sleep, overexposure to my ears (remember: i saw swans on tuesday, too), alcohol, nicotine and the other one that's still a few months away from open mention. so, i'm not done sleeping yet. but there was an experience near the end of the show that i want to say something about. it was one of those really surreal moments of racism that you just can't do much about besides point out loudly and shake your head about. so, i'm going to scream about it for a few paragraphs.

i mother earth were a kind of iconic canadian band in the 90s, and they were uniting here with a singer they hadn't played with in many years. the announcer said 18 years. i'm not sure if that's literally true or not, but it's been a while. the audience was consequently full of nostalgia: an older and mostly white crowd rocking out to records released in 1993 and 1996. much drinking, yes.

now, everybody knows you're not supposed to smoke anything at all in these kinds of outdoor bank concerts. you're just supposed to shut up and drink your over-priced beer. that is, of course, the economic purpose of this event: to sell over-priced beer. but, you can't actually enforce this rule once the sun comes down a little, the least important reason being that most people in the crowd at rock concerts like this actually don't agree with bans on smoking at outdoor concerts. many of them actually even smoke. and, not just cigarettes.

the smell of marijuana is pretty normal at outdoor rock concerts. it's a part of the experience - whether you're actually inhaling, or just taking in the aroma. it wouldn't be a real festival, without it. whatever the eventual legality of the substance in canada, that smell is not going to lift from the concerts of the nation. there will simply be a trail of corrected signs "thank you for pot smoking".

the spirit of this event, combined with the nature of the audience, actually at one point near the end of the set had joints passing around amongst strangers. somebody decided everybody at the show ought to be high. or it seemed that way. they were just circling around. my nose and eyes caught multiple burning around me.

so, i will acknowledge that there were people smoking pot in the audience. see, but that's just it - *everybody* in the audience was smoking pot. no exaggeration. nine out of ten, anyways.

so, you'll imagine how absurd it was to watch security swoop in, walk past several burning joints and key in on the only black guy in eyesight - who, yes, was caught green-handed. like, they took it out of his hand. ok. drug abuse. but, they had to blatantly walk by scores of stoned white folks to do this, and then scores more as they were escorting him out. 90 out of 100 people in the immediate audience were stoned. it was being openly passed around. but, only one person in the audience was black.

i didn't stay for the literal headliner, so i don't know if they came back later for more minorities, or even for some white folk - or maybe if they just backed off and let people have a good time. but i know what i saw and how obvious it was.

i don't really have any point besides the obvious one: it's really not ok. i don't know exactly who the security personnel were (mall cops?), either, but....i guess the way i should articulate this to organizers is that i don't want to see anything like that ever again.

of course, this has nothing to do with the band. the actual show was excellent, for what it was. tight. no fuck-ups. the tracks were identifiable, but expanded upon enough to play out. i'd need at least two hands to count the number of times i saw this band in the 90s, and they were always a strong live set like that. so, i will actually have some footage coming up in the next few days of i mother earth with edwin in 2016. that's something that is actually happening. there's some teaparty footage, too.

right now, back to sleep....