NSE & AC/DC

You may have noticed some AC/DC t-shirts showing prominently in the pictures from a recent NSE trip report. That may warrant some explanation, and we think it's a good story.

You see, last August, AC/DC played a big outdoor concert in Regina. Being small-town metal-heads of a certain age, we all really wanted to go to Taylor Field for the experience. However, tickets were expensive, sold quickly, and being parents of a certain age, none of us bought tickets. That didn't quite stop us though. You see, Jay had a stroke of brilliance. About 4 in the afternoon on the day of the concert, about the time we should already have been on the highway heading south to Regina if we were going to make the concert, Jay decided a little thing like a lack of money, tickets, time, planning or spousal approval should not stop us. Jay had come up with a idea that was the type of brilliance which I had not seen in some time, especially from him.

Jay's first act was to call up Rob and line up some A/V requirements. Next he was off to the local discount department store. There, he found the key component in his plan - an AC/DC live concert DVD, along with a Johnny Cash live concert DVD just for good measure. Also at the store, he found a stack of AC/DC t-shirts at a bargain basement price, so he grabbed the pile - one shirt for each person on his exclusive private concert guest list. Somewhere along the line he sent out a few e-mails and made a few phone calls to invite about 8 friends over to his house that evening. His invitation was vague, but mentioned not to bring beer; something unusual was afoot to be certain.

We arrived at Jay's back yard on a warm August evening to find a bed sheet hung in the yard amongst the trees as a screen and Rob quickly set up the DVD player, projector and speakers. A merchandise table was already arranged off to the side, well-stocked with a variety of AC/DC t-shirts. The camp fire was lit, chairs were set up and the beer was circulated. As the crowds arrived t-shirts were selected from the merch table (free) and we drank more of the beer from Jay's fridge, left behind from various gatherings over the last couple years.

The concert started with the amazing (and normally quite dead) Johnny Cash as the opening act. That was very good, but was a tad mellow. With the full concert crowd now in attendance and quite hyped to see the main act, AC/DC  took the stage and rocked the back yard in their full (though somewhat dimensionally limited) glory. Some of us got rather into the atmosphere of the concert, and it was a great time to be certain. In fact, toward the end, certain elements of the crowd got a tad out of control. Thankfully, that element didn't have far to go to get to bed afterwards.

During the following weeks I wore my t-shirt to work and it would garner many positive responses. Some folks stopped me to ask if I went to the concert. To those I would reply "well, sort of..." and begin my explanation of the excellent AC/DC experience. Others would say "awesome concert" while passing and to those my response was, "yeah, awesome, simply awesome."