Eye of the Tiger

Mohan these are just for you!

Why yes, yes they are. No band has kicked so much live ass since Bon Scott passed out in the back seat of a car! This evening I witnessed the boys put on a power-house display of live music at a downtown club here in Vancouver. Despite this being the last show of a hectic north American tour before heading home, the band still managed to show these Canucks how a real rock n' roll show is done. Kicking off with Red Room, from the new album, then finishing with an encore performance of West End Riot, complete with Chris standing on top of Scott's bass during his solo, it was no stop live energy. For me, I was happy that after a day of snowboarding yesterday, and my 27th birthday 2 weeks ago, I could still get amongst it in the mosh pit. Not only that, but during the support act, I met the bass player Scott, who came out the front for a beer (top bloke!) then caught a drum stick from Andy at the end of the show. The other went to another Aussie, who I caught up with after the show, for some stick bashing and an AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, OI OI OI!! you can see the stick displayed proudly in the picture. Seriously, how good are they.

Following a week of torrential rain, resulting in the tap water becoming undrinkable - we had to boil up drinking water - the temperature dropped and, just like a year ago, it snowed in Vancouver. Unlike last year however, it didn't stop for nearly 3 days and we had over 30cm of snow in the city and temperatures going below -10. Now Vancouver is not a city designed for thius weather, and the resultant fallen trees (from the weight of the snow) led to a lot of power outages, including the entirity of UBC. This meant that last Monday the university was completely shut down. That wasn't really a problem though, except that I had no power, or drinking water, at home, which meant no idea that the uni was shut down. So I left my cold powerless basement without food, hoping to get heat and a hot meal out at UBC. Of course that wasn't to be. So after trudgubg around in the snow for an hour or two - taking photos, fresh powder makes for some beautiful pictures - I had to knock on th door of some grad student friends to ask for food and shelter until the power came back on at my place. Thankfully, they had power, heat AND curry, since the power wasn't restored to my area unti 8pm. However, despite the power outages, the icy roads etc, snow really does make it seem like winter and Christmas - thanks to an egg nog latte from Starbucks!