Turns out Gary had forgotten his bus ticket and had to take another cab home to get it. Randomly met up with Mirical who was taking the same bus as us to Vancouver. Hadn't seen her since NIN concert. So nice being able to catch up and talk for an extended period of time. We played Scribblenauts (her controlling, me suggesting combinations of nouns) on DS for like 4 or 5 hours (and that was just the title screen!) We learned that baths kill hippies and DJs like slop but aren't good for much else.

15 hour bus ride.

Arrived in Van, stayed in a hostel right off Hastings. Super sketchy part of town.

Next day. Got yummy $2.50 breakfast (bacon, eggs, toast, and hash browns, but I got extra toast instead). Bought a lock for the locker so we could secure our stuff while we were out, even though any potential thief would have to make it past 2 electronic locks and one old fashioned tumbler lock, we were more concerned with the hostel renting out the 4th bed in our room to some stranger (they didn't).

The "courtyard" outside our window looked like something out of Silent Hill. I love the way rusted sheet metal looks. Got some pictures of that (will post later).

Then we walked from Hastings and Cambie from one end of downtown to the other and crossed the Burrard St Bridge to go to the Space Center.

Space Center was alright. Got to see an actual NASA space suit. Got to touch a moon rock.

They had an alcohol vapor table set up that interacted with radioactive particles (not sure which; the uninformed staff didn't know, but I suspect it only reacted to a relatively narrow frequency range, so like either gamma rays, or x-rays, or beta rays but not all 3) creating white marks. When they struck edgewise they'd make really long trails, others perpendicular pin pricks, and more energetic ones big fat lines. And all of that is passing through our bodies every day, making evolution possible.

I'd sorta like to make like a coffee table out of that.

They had a ride thing that you strapped into and the room moved and played a short movie, but it was far too pulpy and not at all realistic for my tastes. I suppose that's what you gotta do nowadays to get people's attention.

They had a small single section done up to look like the ISS, but the illusion was shattered by the fact that it was open on both ends and the video screen that was supposed to be a stand in for the view port used really bad quality film clips.

Mostly it made me wish I were a super billionaire so I could make a proper space promotion center.

Then we walked all the way back to the hostel (in all about 50 blocks) and got ready for Skinny Puppy.

Went down to the show, very deliberately not walking along Hastings (the venue is on East Hastings and Main, probably the most notorious intersection in Canada, it's where the safe injection site is, I believe). Met up with Cory who had our tickets and Steven.

The venue, the Rickshaw, was a little disappointing. Basically a big concrete box. They made some attempt to improve the acoustics with acoustic panels, but there weren't nearly enough.

The PA was waaay underpowered. Even Hi Fi has got a substantially better PA than that place, and Hi Fi's capacity is only 172, while the Rickshaw's is 1000. I felt bad that Skinny Puppy had to play on that/in that room.

Beyond that, though, I wish I had been allowed to mix it. Whoever was mixing FOH had the backing tracks way down, and cEvin's synth up way too loud. It was jarring. I couldn't even recognize some of the songs at first the mix was so bad at points (granted, I was up front for most of the show and there were no front fills; all I had to go off of was Ogre's own monitors).

Opener was alright, but it was just one guy playing guitar over programmed metal percussion for the most part. He was a decent guitarist, but it wasn't very dynamic and only like 2 songs had vocals.

Then Skinny Puppy.

Stage show was pretty decent. Better than ohGr, obviously not as good as the Too Dark Park tour.

Beware spoilers.

Thematically it seemed to be about an old, decrepit entity slowly becoming revitalized, regenerating (I don't know if this was meant to be a metaphor for the band or what). Ogre's costume looked like a cross between a KKK outfit, the Pope, an old man, and, finally, a monstrous creature.

I was basically front row center. Ogre was about a foot and a half away from me for most of the show. The new guy, Justin from the GWOTR tour and the Mythrus tour, was on drums again, there was no guitar (thank god), and cEvin was on synths/electronics.

Ogre came out with a walker at first, trembling, with a tall white pointy hat, a white mask like a jack-o-lantern and a long matted grey beard. Then he traded the walker for a crutch. Then he cast the crutch away. The final form was movie monster-esque, with glistening semi-translucent, burn scarred skin and a single featureless black unblinking eye in the center of its face. Then he produced two crutches bound together in a cross shape and brought back the hat which now emitted smoke like the incense from a thurible (or, alternately, like the smoke used to signify the election of a new Pope). Very clear Catholic symbolism as the song he did it for was about the Christian right.

He had a "shadow box"; a big steel cage with white canvass covering the front and lights behind. He had a closed circuit camera inside and an LCD monitor on top (there were also multiple projectors projecting on screens, the band itself). That video feed was mixed with the backing video. He'd sing into the camera, and peek out from behind part of the canvass that he'd peeled back.

Then he removed the canvass and there was Plexiglas behind, then he used a hose to spray fake blood on it (and some on the audience, myself included).

The setlist was mostly older stuff, 2 songs off of Too Dark Park (which surprised me), only one song off of Remission, and a bunch of songs in the middle that were from the 80s, a lot of which I didn't recognize (cause that era all sort of blurs together for me). They only played 4 post-reunion songs (3 from Mythmaker, 1 from GWOTR), which made a lot of the older fans I talked to happy, the less the better as far as they're concerned. There were several "brap" improvisational sessions throughout.

The encore was Warlock and Far Too Frail. Ogre took off the mask finally for the encore.

Afterward my ears were ringing and I was speckled with fairly convincing fake blood.

Back to the hostel and sleep.

Next day we walked the length of Commercial Drive and back. Bought a Darwin fish for my van. Then me and Gary took the robot train downtown and went to a Japanese restaurant with Cory and Lorena. Yaum.

Then the next day 17 hour bus ride home. Almost got stuck in BC when they closed the highway after 3 semis spun out.

My feet hurt.

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