Shanny and I did the Roots & Blues festival up pretty good this weekend. This was the first weekend-long music festival that I've done in 2 years and I forgot how fun it can be.

We missed Thursday night (I was at a gig of T's and Shanny was busy fighting with "Robert Redford", whom she broke up with on Friday). I would have liked to see David Byrne, but oh well.

She showed up at my place around 5 on Friday and we hopped a cab down to the site, sporting our fabulous All Access passes, courtesy of T, who's band played the first set on Friday night. We met up with our friend Trevor and checked out the beer tent for a while. When T's set was done I had to go hook up with him, as he was packing up, getting paid and heading for a shuttle to take him to the airport to fly to Winnipeg, to drive to a Northern Ontario festival for the rest of the weekend. Poor boy, he missed all the fun. Anyhow, he showed me where the van was parked, I kissed him good-bye (scoring his pass off him for Shari for Saturday night) and off he went. Trev and Shanny and I decided to check out the backstage scene at this point, and there we stayed for much of the weekend.

Can't beat the backstage. Free beer. Many many cool musicians hanging about. A place where you can smoke and drink at the same time.

We stayed Friday until about midnight (the evening ended with Lyle Lovett) and then went on to the theatre bar for more drinks and then back to my house, where we stayed up until 5am listening to music really loudly. I bet my neighbors just love it when I do that. Anyhow, we finally crashed and tried to get a little sleep.

I think Shanny managed a little more than me. I had warned her that I snore when I've had a lot to drink, but she decided to sleep in my bed anyhow, and then my snoring was keeping her awake, and then her trying to stop me from snoring woke me up, so finally I retired to the basement around 10, but I never really got a lot more sleep after that. Finally, about 2:30 we got up and mobile, had showers and headed out to feed her cats and pick up Trevor and head back down, in time to catch the band her friend Mark plays in. They rocked.

We had more beers, listened to a lot more great music. I watched Wilson Pickett from 3 feet away. His pipes aren't quite what they used to be, but he's still ultra cool. We discovered a free vodka bar (all kinds of flavoured vodkas) in the backstage beer tent, and we hung out there for quite a while. Shari showed up to join for The Funk Brothers and then we headed back to her and Trevor's house for a couple of beers outside on the deck. I manged to be home in bed by 2, which was good.

Sunday I slept until 1:00 (much needed) and then picked Shanny up for afternoon/evening #3 of music and beer. We were much mellower, but had a lovely time non-the-less. Did some shopping for new CDs in the merchandise tent. Got all rained on (it wouldn't be a music festival without one day of rain) and made it home (after a brief stop at Shanny's for one last evening cocktail) to be in bed by 1am.

TOP 10 THINGS I LIKED ABOUT THE WEEKEND:

1. Hanging out with Shanny. We haven't spent that much time together in a while, and we were over-due. Much mutual loving and support occured. Much gossiping about how dumb boys can be.

2. Getting "funkified" by the fabulous Funk Brothers, and Wilson Pickett, and - oh my god - Sam Moore - of "Sam and Dave" fame. Some of my most favorite R&B ever. Unlike Wilson, Sam still most definately has the pipes.

3. Freshening up our make-up in the backstage beer tent while enjoying the free vodka. It was like a little "Mary Kay Make-over" session, but without the shitty Mary Kay make-up.

4. Running in to lots of people I haven't seen in ages.

5. Meeting cool chicks. Hanging with those cool chicks. Not having to hang with stupid boys too much.

6. Free booze.

7. Getting introduced to knew bands, like Old Reliable, or Carolyn Mark and The New Best Friends, who I missed on the mainstage, but I got her CD and listened to it when I got home last night, and I love it!

8. Hearing Rosanne Cash do songs I have loved for years and years. Run Away Train. Tenessee Flat Top Box. Getting her new album, with a duet she did with her dad just before he died. Sitting 5 feet away from her backstage.

9. Getting rained on and not caring cause it's so much fun and the music is so good. I'd stand in the rain for a little John Prine any time.

10. Having fun and getting tipsy and getting up the next day NOT feeling guilty for the night before.

TOP 10 THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THE WEEKEND:

1. Muggy weather.

2. The smell of pee in the urinals in the port-o-pottys. Come on folks, these are state-of-the-art outdoor toliets, with hand sanitzers right there in the stalls, and all kinds of fancy ventilation. You'd think they could throw in a urinal puck or two. Seriously, it was making me gag.

3. Too much festival food - Indian Curries, Jamaican Patties, Perogies and Kubassa. Oh so healthy.

4. My sweat pants soaking up rain water almost to the knee on Sunday night.

5. No proper place to see the acts on stage from backstage. Get it together, festival organizers. You think Rosanne or Lyle want to wander out into the crowd to catch the next act?

6. Drunks with no sense of person space who keep banging in to you repeatedly while you're trying to enjoy The Funk Brothers, even after you start elbowing them strenuously in the ribs every time they get too near.

7. Missing acts like The Blind Boys of Alabama because I couldn't get my ass out of bed in time.

8. Stupid City smoking by-laws.

9. Lyle Lovett being sort of a weirdo when Shanny tried to tell him she liked his music.

10. Having to come to work today, instead of being able to stay home and do laundry and bask in the enjoyment of a weekend well spent.