Last night I went downtown for a concert at the Winspear Centre. This business of going to see rock musicians while sitting in comfortable seats is growing on me. The opening act was a guy from Winchester England called Frank Turner, and I was thinking that he’d probably have fun at Folkfest. The main performers were Joel Plaskett Emergency, from Halifax. It’s so neat to be hearing someone perform in person when I’ve listened to his or her transmitted voice many times – like listening to Stuart McLean talk, or Mr Dressup when we went to his live show as children. The Winspear acoustics are so fabulous, and Joel was playing with just a bassist and a drummer and sometimes playing one of seven guitars himself, so his voice came through well.

I thought one of my friends was going to be there but I didn’t see her. The crowd was mostly hipster-aesthetic in their 30s, but lots of variation from that too. And almost everyone stayed sitting down during the sets. If I ever manage to buy a Winspear ticket for a rock act early enough that I get a great choice of seats, I don’t know if I’d pick the front, or pick one of the many seats with nobody behind me so I could stand up and dance. But it really might be a concert hall with no bad seats. (And of course they had no ban on knitting. I’m still thinking about whether I want to go to Sonic Boom this year. I’d go for sure if I had someone to go with, but going by myself with no knitting, hmm.)

Also as part of my middleclass middleaged privilege, after the concert I caught a cruising taxi, and beforehand I had supper at Zinc, the interesting restaurant at the art gallery. I had the catch of the day which involved pork belly. Also various amuse-bouche snacks and an architectural dessert.