“How many live concerts have you seen, and how many beer did you drink?”

I love music and cannot imagine a day without it, so I’ve been to a fair number of concerts in my life – probably more than I can count.

• I’ve seen Acadian folk music more than once from more than one band (Blou is one of the better-known ones),
• two concerts by the amazing Canadian hip-hop artist K-Os (I took my younger brother to the second one, and K-Os almost handed him a beer when he came back onstage for an encore with a few beers in his hands and was giving them out to the audience),
• more recitals for friends and family than you can shake a stick at (piano and choirs, mostly),
• a Beatles tribute band called Beatlemania (again, more than once) and an Aussie Pink Floyd tribute band that my uncle and I walked through a snowstorm to see,
• a free outdoor concert featuring one of my favorite local groups, the Trews (my friend found a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk on the walk home),
• a weekend-long festival of Canadian music called Fish Aid at which one of my best friends discovered an allergy to marijuana smoke,
• a free electronica concert by Dr. Draw in a gazebo on a city street,
• a ton of variety shows, including one in a church with a choir in Prince Edward Island,
• a HUGE Feist concert,
• a great local hip-hop concert that I took my roommate to as her Christmas present (I had one beer, but usually I don’t drink at concerts),
• and most recently a local concert where my friend and I watched almost all the opening acts (power-pop, girl-punk, and synthetic, respectively), and didn’t stay for the main event – a rapper. We were too tired to stay up any later.

But my favorite concert by far took place in a beautiful church in Nova Scotia. Two classically trained musicians, a flutist and a marimbist, performed mostly solo pieces with some collaborations. I had never heard a marimbist play alone before, and with the acoustics in that church it was utterly, utterly phenomenal. I am not a religious person, but hearing the marimba’s notes echo up into the church cloisters was akin to the voices of the angels. It was easily one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. Music nourishes the soul.

Question stolen from the Pioneer Woman: http://thepioneerwoman.com/.

- M.

Listening to: “Racing Hearts” by Dr. Draw. The electric violin in this is haunting and lush.