#101. P!nk in the Rain (Sunday, July 7, 2017)
What was your best day…of risking something important for something you just wanted?
For a city traditionally associated with dull people and non-existent nightlife, Ottawa does go all in for its big events. Case in point, Bluesfest: the second-largest music festival in North America, which attracts over 300,000 people to a giant outdoor field right next to downtown for two weeks a year.
Despite hosting its fair share of blues artists, the event has always featured major headline acts to draw massive crowds. The 2017 lineup included: 50 Cent, Fetty Wap, Flume, Migos (a near-riot broke out on the day of their act), and P!nk. P!nk was the one I wanted to see. I had been a big fan of her music ever since listening to her on the school minivan radio in fifth grade—and was thrilled to be seeing it all performed live outdoors, in person.
Problem was: it would be on Sunday night. I had work the next day—and, more importantly, a presentation to open up a conference we were hosting the day after. I thought it through, drew on past experience with similar dilemmas, and went ahead and bought the day pass.
That Sunday, I ended up spending the entire afternoon and early evening in my office getting the presentation ready and rehearsed. Then I took the short bus ride to Bluesfest, arrived an hour before the show, had a gourmet poutine dinner at the food stands, and staked my spot about a hundred feet from the stage.
The act was freaking awesome.
P!nk enters to “Get the Party Started”, with all the crazy special effects. And in the moment she pops out center stage in her dyed hair rocking to the chorus, I get that awesome wow-I’m-actually-seeing-a-celebrity-performing-live-right-now feeling that you only get a few times in your life (before you get used to it, which sheltered me had not to that point).
She goes through pretty much all her well-known hits1: “U + Ur Hand”, “So What”, “Raise Your Glass”, “Just Give me a Reason”, “Just Like Fire”, “What About Us”, and finally, “Try” – which is accompanied by her hooking onto this giant zipline and riding it across the crowd to this higher platform, then flying back. In the middle of this, a light drizzle turns to heavy pouring, and everyone in the audience of 30,000-plus (including me) takes out their umbrellas. But she just keeps going with unwavering enthusiasm, front and center—on a smaller, uncovered stage further into the crowd—for the last forty minutes as the rain keeps falling.
This is followed by two hours of me fighting my way onto a bus and making it home past midnight—followed by me killing that presentation two days later.
- Though the absence of my longtime favorite “Don’t Let Me Get Me” was disappointing.