Edmonton (Reds) Saturday Sept. 17^th 2005. (560km round trip)

After the car disaster on Friday night we still had to use the Ford Explorer to go to the Edmonton show. We left Calgary at about 4PM and got to the West Edmonton Mall at about 7PM . There were no problems on the way and everything went smoothly. Good start I thought…but there is some fun to come.

Anyway, inside Red’s we asked about the Nazareth guest list but the organizer couldn’t find it so it was just as well that we had tickets anyway. I kinda thought it would be a problem since Reds is such a huge place and it seemed so disorganized. Frances and I sat down at about 7:30 , shared 2 pitches of Canadian and had a Mushroom Swiss burger for supper. We started drinking a little too early as we found out later.

The support band was “China White” or was it “White China”?? I must have blown that brain cell that night. But what a show they put on! They played all kinds of old Lover Boy, Trooper, REO Speed Wagon, The Eagles and the BEST by far was “Live and Let Die” by Wings. That was the best!! It was close to 11pm already and Tom, the Nazareth roadie (Top Man!), came on stage and was taping his watch to the lead singer, basically saying “Come on lad’s, time to finish up for the main Band”.

It wasn’t long before we were cheering to the Nazareth intro. That beautiful Scottish music. The lights went down and then they came on full blast to “Miss Misery”. Oh, by the way, Frances and I had had about 5 beers by now, not including the 2 pitches earlier. We were feeling so good by now. I still had the set list on my phone from last night and they played the same songs. The place was rocking’ big time, with about 1700 people there, mostly drunk like me! By the time they got to “Love Leads to Madness” I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The acoustics were the best yet and the dry ice effect on stage added a nice “feeling” to the whole thing.

I knew what songs were coming so I thought that after “Hair of the Dog” they’d be off and ready for the encore, but they stayed on and played “Love Hurts”. Ahh , Frances and I has a cuddle again and danced a bit to that, even though it was shoulder to shoulder at the front of the stage. I got loads of photos too. God knows how I did because I was so drunk by now.

The encore started with “Night Woman”. I think that one is brilliant…as do I all of them. The last one tonight was “This Flight Tonight”. Then sadly they were all done. Actually, it was time for Frances and I to maybe go back to the car and sleep the drunk off, but we stuck around for a while afterwards only to be basically kicked out by the bouncers. We wanted to see the band but I think we got kicked out for being just a bit drunk.

Anyway we woke up the morning at about 7:30 to find that we had some how moved the car a few stalls down and left the flippin’ lights on. Yeah, the battery was dead. The CAA had a hard time finding us but we finally got on the road back home. Had a 1 hour kip in Red Deer . Got back to Calgary at 2PM and then watched the taped Liverpool vs. Mancs game..0-0, what a drag. Has a 2 hour sleep and then got ready for the Red Deer Show.

We just keep on truckin’. More to come…

OFFICIAL Edmonton Set List.
Miss Misery
Razamanaz
Kentucky Fried Blues
This Month's Messiah
Sunshine
Bad Bad Boy
Love Leads to Madness
My White Bicycle
Heart's Grown Cold
Shanghai'd in Shanghai
Cocaine
Turn On Your Receiver
Hair of the Dog
Love Hurts
--------------------------
Night Woman
This Flight Tonight