Recapping

We've had three and a half months away from Penang, half in Bermuda, half in Toronto, and it was a great time. Visiting the place where we'd lived for 32 years, seeing friends and hanging out, going to concerts of rock bands from the 1970's who are just about hanging on but still rocking. It has been great.

Here are some highlights.

1. Bermuda Beaches

No words necessary here. I'd forgotten how beautiful they were. Here's a brief reminder.

Warwick Long Bay and one of the many nameless beaches at Coopers Island

Who wouldn't want to swim here?

2. History and Tradition

I don't think people look back enough and consider where they come from and just why what exists today exists today. It all comes from the past and whilst the way history was taught to me when I was at school was largely an exercise in rote learning dates and in a way that tried to parcel up history into chunks -- mine for example was at O Level from 1485-1688 and from 1688 to 1815... we had two exams, written essays both, covering each of these periods. In isolation this means that history did not exist either before or after these dates which is of course ridiculous.

History writers today cover this much better and attempt to contextualise history in that they also explain or rather try to explain the 'why'. Much of this is down to conjecture as nobody alive then (say in Roman times) is alive today.

I really enjoyed Quebec City but one of those history 'why' moments was the best. Napoleon's blockade of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars forced Britain to look elsewhere for timber for the Royal Navy... hence the opening up of Canada.

Trooping the color... all in French!

The St Lawrence Seaway, one of the great sea lanes that opened up the entire continent

3. Tennis

Both of us are tennis players and were able to indulge both playing and watching whilst we were traveling. I still think that our 'home' tennis club in Bermuda is one of the nicest places to play tennis and as hard courts go is up there with the best.

Beers under the trees in between the courts is very nice indeed!

We only planned to watch one day of tennis at the Rogers Cup in Toronto but ended up going 3 or 4 days... ironically the worst day was the one we'd originally chosen and the others ended up being far better. We also had visitors over this time too which made it doubly nice.

How do they manage to hit the ball?

4. Eating

We like to eat. Simple as that. So finding great places to eat and nice things to eat are important. We got really lucky!

Dodge City steak

Milanese from an Italian in Miami during our horrible hiatus

Quebec lobster

Poutine and traditional Quebec meat pie

Amazing French stick from Toronto

5. Music

Given that we went to all of those concerts, this just had to be included. I enjoyed all of the shows but if I were pushed would have to give pole position to Lynyrd Skynyrd, the last show of all. ZZ Top though were the only band to have not changed personnel for whatever reason over the years. They ran close but...

6. Selfies

Selfies are a great notion and do enable you to take interesting pictures but they do tend to be really awful a lot of the time. We tried to do at least one selfie each day and in almost all occasions deleted them immediately. Perhaps my arms aren't long enough or just as likely I am not that great a photo snapper.

See what I mean?

7. Traveling Companion

Of course the best thing of all was to have a wonderful traveling companion and I was lucky enough to have the best!

Lord Knows I Can't Change

You know when the world has gone mad when you read a review of a simple rock concert and it forgets about the music and drones on and on about inexplicable connections to random things that 20 year old kids never thought about when they wrote them. This is the Globe and Mail:

"At the Toronto concert, which is part of an extended farewell tour, Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant (the much younger brother of Ronnie Van Zant, the singer who was killed along with two other band members in a plane crash in 1977) asked if there were any Americans in the audience. People booed at that instance, but otherwise lustily applauded a retiring group “singing songs about the South land.” They cheered the loudest for the show-closing Free Bird, a euphoric anthem, a defiant declaration of the band’s rebel spirit – “Lord help me, I can’t change” – and, ultimately, a farewell.

"There’s a certain romance to the band’s rebellious spirit. Nostalgia is a part of it as well. But, mostly, the material was the main appeal of the night. It stands up, even if some of its most important creators no longer do. Sweet Home Alabama still has the ability to “pick me up when I’m feeling blue,” all these years later."

This makes me wonder if the reviewer was actually there at the show or simply wrote an op-ed based on whatever crusade he was on at the time. For goodness sake, these tunes were written by a bunch of 20 year olds hoping against hope to make the big time. No political side to things. Actually the band is very good friends with Neil Young and this was a gentle piece of mickey taking ... according to another biopic on You Tube, that great encyclopedia of the modern day.

It was a great night except that Viv gave her ticket to one of our friends who was visiting us, Martin from Boston. She'd threatened this at each show but this time it was for real which was a shame as it was the best show of all.

I hadn't realized there'd be other bands as well as ZZ Top and was surprised when we turned up to find Blackfoot churning away. Then 38 Special, another 2nd or 3rd tier American band who are very, very accomplished. Both I'd never given much time to but I was looking forward to ZZ Top and boy did they deliver.

I'd watched yet another biopic on You Tube and learned like many bands from the 1970s who sort of quit at the beginning of the 1980s when they became dinosaurs, out of fashion with what was going on, they got back together largely because the people who were their fans in the 1970s were still their fans, but now had jobs, families and other responsibilities. I remember crying when The Who announced their break up in 1982, for example. Returning to ZZ Top they got back together again a few years later and discovered that they had both grown beards, well Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill had anyway. So they kept them and started playing once more.

Who even knows what they look like before those beards??

This is what they look like before they had beards. Or rather long beards

They were great!

As for Lynyrd Skynyrd, I'd seen them 8 or 9 times before. It was John Peel in England who introduced me to them and I remember buying their first album as an expensive US import when I was at college during a (one of many) rail strike in London. I had to lug the damn thing around with me for days before I could get it home and listen to it. 

The first show of theirs I saw was in Southend at the Kursaal when they supported Golden Earring, a fabulous Dutch rock band. They were fantastic however I was really disappointed that a girl I really fancied who wore a long Afghan coat (as I recall) ended up backstage snogging one of the guitarists... and I suppose did other things too. I dropped the notion of chasing her immediately.

The guitarist on the right, Allen Collins, was the guy snogging that girl I fancied at the Kursaal!

Others followed including one in the US sometime in the 1990s when they played the same set as they did tonight. Boy, am I glad some things don't change. Sounds like the title of this blog! Mind you their significant years were in such a short space of time before they went down in a plane crash when a number died. Only one is alive and in the band these days.

The sole survivor, Gary Rossington

The audience went wild throughout... including myself! I video'd the encore 'Freebird' all 14 minutes of it and can tell you that holding up that damn phone was hard work on some muscles in my arm that I didn't know that I had.

Thanks guys! You were and remain the best!! Oh yes and here of course is.... from Toronto 2018 in all its glory. Hope you like it!!