The Vanity Project

It all started with an e-mail from the NOW magazine on Tuesday, June 21th.

Subject: Congrats from NOW!
You've won a pair of passes to see The Vanity Project, featuring Steven Page ofBarenaked Ladies at The Drake on Friday, June 24th from 6-8pm! ...

.....oooohhhhkaaaay.
What the.

The Vanity Project?

Sorry Steven, I totally forgot what this was about, I had to google. I found a few article on Steven Page's solo project with Stephen Duffy. Aah. Oh yeah. I remember entering for this contest! Yeah, tickets to see Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies. Woohoo! Of course I was a bit concerned about some of the reviews I found about the Vanity Project, how it is more political and serious than the barenaked ladies. Hmmm....

So I headed over to the NOW mag offices on Thursday (yeah, was a bit busy with stuff to go there during work hours) to get the tickets. After the nice lady checked my ID, she said "Here you go! Enjoy!" and handed me 2 tags (see pic). Oh, they're not tickets? They're tags? Huh???
Kewl.

On Friday, the day of, because the concert was at 6pm, I got my Sweetie to come down around 5:30pm downtown to pick me up and headed to the Drake hotel. Okay, we weren't really doing any homework on which area was under construction, but boy oh boy, there was so much construction on every route we took! We couldn't turn onto some streets, we had to take alternates, and then when we took alternates, some of those were also doing constructions. Crazy! On top of this, the intersection between Queen street and Dufferin (right smack in the middle of where Drake hotel is) was also having construction. Crazy! So, it took us a good hour to get to the Drake.

I was feeling rather upset, thinking I may have missed the whole concert when we walked into the Drake hotel at 6:50pm. (with all the crazy parking and stuff, it took us a while). To our amazement, the concert hasn't started yet.

The person by the front stopped us, asked us if we were one of the Now content winners. I said Yes and showed her the tags, and she said "okay, here are 2 drink tickets each for you. You can have anything on the bar." !!! Whoa. Thanks Now magazine and Steven Page... for the yummy beer. ;)

We went to get a beer and looked around - and found Steven Page mingling with the crowd. Wow, it's small scale. Most of the people around had a tag... We found a nice area with a bar table to stand in front of, near the back of the room. The waitress kept on bringing food out to place on the bar table... wow, free food too. Mmm... We were hungry (as we didn't have dinner yet) so we ate some stuff there. Poached pear with walnuts, and some food that resembled sushi pizza but without the fish. Yum yum.

A short time after that, the new video came on on the screen behind the front stage (later I found out that the song is called "wilted rose") about animals who knows that they are going to be slaughtered, trying to escape the farm. They end up escaping the farm but find out what a crazy world it is and decide to go back to the farm. Oooo... kaay. Dark. And then Steven Page made his way to the stage. He explained that the people in the room is either contest winners, media or friends. Kewl. Saw Paul Myers and Tyler Stewart in the crowd.... ;) He also said it's different to be up there without the guys and started to sing some songs. Most of the people there I don't think knew any of the new stuff, since the album just came out that Tuesday, but it was good. More mellower version of barenaked ladies? After a while, Steve said "I'm also in a band called barenaked ladies, I don't know if you heard of it?" ;) Hehehe... he's still funny. He played mainly on a guitar, and sang a few songs with a harmonica around his neck as well. (he commented he's new with this harmonica, and that if he's not careful, the harmonica will be in his way and he'll bang it on the microphone)

The Vanity Project sound was pretty mellow. It was rather nice to hear Steve's beautiful voice accompanied only by the guitar. It was just him up there, with a guy helping out giving him the correct harmonica / guitar for the songs. The songs i found wasn't as political as I first thought (I thought maybe it'll sound political) though he did mention a certain politician in his song. It's nice to hear him do ballads. :) Different from the usual barenaked ladies.

To my surprise, he sang a few barenaked ladies songs, too. Brian Wilson, Call and Answer, and another song I wasn't really sure of... something about being in a basement... he wasn't remembering his words and he was having problems with the chords that it really didn't matter what he sang. ;) He kept on trying to remember the chord, and once he got the chord right, he would mess up the words... hehehe, it was fun to watch. He didn't know all of his Vanity Project songs' chords either.

He also talked a bit about the Live 8 thing that they were doing, how it is suppose to raise awareness and not money. He also said he was trying to give the white bracelets out for free on the street and nobody took them! I would've! I want one... ;)

All in all, this was such a fun concert to attend. He didn't sing too many songs and I think it ended by 8pm. I was hoping I'd say "Hi" to the guy but he seem to have rushed out after the concert. Oh well. When we decided to leave, and went outside, we found Steven doing an interview outside... oh, so that's why he left early! Oh well, maybe next time I'll meet him!

Followup stuff...

CP24 interview with Steven Page June 24, 2005
Article on Metro June 24, 2005
Article on Canoe June 25, 2005
The Vanity Project