Concerted Efforts

by Kelly

We were really lucky to get a chance to see some of our favourite singers and groups live this year – in fact, we went to 13 live shows in 2009.  Here they are:

Glasvegas – April 13th

Serena Ryder – April 14th

English Beat – April 17th

Travis – April 21st

Franz Fernidad – May 4th

Gomez – May 29th

Tragically Hip, Sam Roberts & The Arkells – June 27th

Paolo Nutini – July 31st

Arctic Monkeys – September 29th

Manic Street Preachers – October 4th

Happy Mondays, Psychedelic Furs – October 14th

Billy Bragg, Ron Hawkins – November 17th

DJ Champion – November 27th

I enjoyed every single one of them!  In my opinion, there is nothing better than live music – particularly if you are lucky enough to see a favourite artist at a smaller venue.  The intimate atmosphere allows for so much more engagement between the artist and audience.  We are also very lucky to have close friends who share our love of live music so we often get to share the experience with them which makes it even better.

There are a couple of notable absences from this list I’m sad to say.  We didn’t see Coldplay this year even though they played Toronto again.  We had seen them in July of 2008 (an amazing show) and were on a tight concert budget this year.  Unfortunately, we were also unable to get U2 tickets – the ones we could get were not great seats and the price was terribly high ($250 per ticket).  We did have tickets to see The Killers but had to cancel at the last minute as our cat was sick (glad to say he’s fine now).

I wonder how many concerts we will get to see in 2010?