Sloan

After the excellent Sloan performance of the night before and the mild crowd, my friend Alex and I were determined to do something special to show the band our love and to incite Sloan-loving hysteria in our fellow showgoers. We decided to make a sign to hang up on the balcony above the stage. It took us forever to think of what to write. Eventually I thought of Patrick's tour diary from their previous US tour, where Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum ripped on Rush, and Patrick exclaimed "No one insults Canada's ambassadors of rock!" Well, as far as I am concerned, Sloan will always be the premier Ambassadors of Rock from Canada. So we made a sign on hideous neon pink posterboard that said "NYC WELCOMES CANADA'S AMBASSADORS OF ROCK!" and hung it from the balcony. I entered the venue with the rolled-up poster and bracelets of inside-out duct tape around my wrists. I was worried I might violate some ballroom protocol, but the doormen just laughed at me and waved me in.

Apparently we were not the only ones with plans to kick the Sloan love up a notch. We met these awesome kids with homemade iron-on shirts that said "SLOAN WE LUV U" and "SLOAN 4 EVA." They were great.

During the opening band (The Sunshine Fixx) we noticed Jay leaning against a pole. I sidled up to him and asked him to sign my cd. He was very nice and did so, while I told him how great the show was the night before. He said that they planned to rock out even harder that very evening (he wasn't lying).

The Good In Everyone, The Lines You Amend (played both nights), Iggy and Angus, and so on. This show just got better and better. I see tons of live shows, and these two Sloan shows are in my top five. I just couldn't have been happier with what they produced.

The best part was that Alex and I were trying to get them to look at our sign -- finally we made eye contact with Chris and he looked up and mouthed, "your sign?" while we nodded and jumped up and down rabidly. Then he smiled, exposing his pretty, pretty, glaringly, beautiful-robot super-white teeth -- and got on his knees and jammed on his axe in the direction of the sign, and then to us. All the kids on the balcony and around us were freaking out, because they knew it was our sign and all the Sloan Superfans had bonded before the show (everyone was so excited to be there -- how Thursday should have been!).

Thank you Sloan. PLEASE COME BACK TO NYC. November 9th would be good, it'll be my 26th birthday. But really, any time would do, as long as it is soon. We miss you.