Yes, FINALLY.

I've been harassed on IRC, bugged in e-mail, and made to feel guilty just about everywhere....but it's here. Why the hell did it take me so long? Well, it's like this. Murray told me that he was working on Road Diary #3 and that it was going to be about the Winnipeg Folk Fest. He said that he was almost done. Great, I thought, I'll just wait 'til it's posted so I won't copy anything he says. Beautiful idea in theory.

I'll basically run through some of my weekend, not all of it (Friday was the day from hell, but in a nice way [?]). Also, I think it's quite pathetic to say "yeah, so Murray and I did this, and Mike and I did this, and then we did this...", so if I say "a bunch of us" or "some of us" or whatever, it may include any or all of the following people: Jian, Murray, Dave, Mike, John, Murray's friend Mira, my friend Melanie, and Trevor from the Worms. And sometimes Doug. =) You should also know that I lost the setlists from the weekend (hangs head in shame), but if I find them, I'll let Chris O. know immediately and he'll put them on his page.

Thursday at 6 I met Doug (Sirilyan on IRC) at the bus depot downtown. We had dinner at Zanzy's across the street, and talked. We were basically alone, cuz the place is pretty dead when classes aren't in session (U of W is right across the street). We ate and ran, standing outside the bus depot for ages and ages before our ride showed up (coulda strangled the guy). Poor Doug; I was pissed of at our ride AND PMSing, so he got to see my true bitchy colours within the first 2 hours. =) We made it out to the park and set up the tent (my first and LAST time, I hope!), and Doug went to check out mainstage. I had to pull an all-nighter volunteering, so I didn't follow.

Skip most of Friday....I saw one and a half Arrogant Worms workshops. Caught a bit of mainstage. And...you don't want to know the rest. Really, it wasn't pretty. Oh, and I shared the loooong bus ride back into the city with Trevor. I've talked with him a few times, and he knows about my whole Fruvous thing, so we basically stuck to that for the 45 minutes. Turns out we have similar opinions about Jian's wardrobe and Jack. =D

Awright...Saturday. Sigh. Remember a while ago a was rejoicing about a Fruvous/Arrogant Worms workshop taking place (which I was jokingly trying to take credit for)? Well, this was it. Or was TO BE it. The guys were in Thunder Bay the night before. Do you think they got a flight out of there in time? Nope. Missed the workshop. Of all the ones for them to miss...geez. Great Big Sea took their place, and it was still fun. They were a little unsure of themselves at first I think, but they really got into it. They *are* fun guys. I got some pics of the Worms singing with GBS, one of which I'll get scanned. I did take a few of just GBS, but Chris (Worms) had me taking pics with HIS camera too, and I think they accidently ended up on his (oops).

For the second workshop, I showed up and they still weren't there. So I went for a walk, and planned to meet one of my friends backstage. I wandered back to the workshop stage after visiting the first aid tent (don't ask), and they had arrived. I'd missed the first song, but caught the rest. This is what they did, sorta:

Boss
Gulf War
umm...damn. don't remember. (sheepish grin again)

After that, me and Murray went backstage for a bite before their interview (some radio thing...not sure exactly what it was, nor did they I don't think). Then everyone had dinner, and then I left to find friends and watch mainstage. The Worms were on at around 8, and Fruvous at 11 (Great Big Sea was on at like 1 or something, but I was just too tired for that). Here's the Fruvs list, the one that I *did* find:

BJ
Get In The Car
YWGTTM
Today Is The Day
MM
Johnny S.
Love Potion #9
King
GE&H

Here's a story (some of you might have read part of this in an earlier thread): in '93 when the guys came to Winnipeg on their Bargainville tour, they did the national anthem at the Jets game. They were each given Jets jerseys with their names on the back, which they wore on stage that night during their final encore of Gulf War. Now, at that show I'd gotten tickets for front row centre, and had gotten bellied up to the stage. Right there, looking straight up at them. I was very starstruck little girl...that night Jian spit on me during Green Eggs & Ham and I bragged about it for a year. You get the picture. For the past 3 1/2 years, I've been wondering what had happened to those jerseys. Anyways, it comes time for the encore on mainstage, and what does Mike come out in? You guessed it, the Jets jersey. I flipped. I started screaming in my poor friend's ear, and just HAD to intercept Mike when he got off stage. I freaked out on HIM, too. For most of you who've been fans for a long time, you know what it's like to have these "full circle moments". This was the queen of all full circle moments. Very cool. And yeah, I did touch the jersey (had to do it).

Anyways...after that little psychotic moment, I headed back home. I was falling asleep before the bus even left, and I opened my eyes to see Jian coming down the aisle. He said "hi", I muttered something back (it was nice, don't worry), and he turned to the 2 people across the aisle from me (they were about 16 I guess). The one girl had broken her leg, and he asked her about it. Turned out that they were fans, and Jian talked with them for about 5 minutes. He turned to go back to his seat, and the 2 of them just freaked out like "ohmygodIdon'tbelieveit!!!". Made their weekend, totally. I'm just mentioning this because I know it'll be meaningful to any fan who tried to get attention from Jian a few years back. Major changes here, folks. =)

Some other tidbits from the performance include:

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