Saturday:
My sister-in-law's workplace was hosting a Grey Cup breakfast Saturday morning and we were all invited to attend. The meal was amazing and there is something about starting your day with beer, orange juice and champagne, or Irish Cream laced coffee that really gets your day rolling. The hotel this breakfast was hosted at just so happened to be the same hotel the Riders were staying in. As we walked up to the entrance, who should we see but #41 Fred Perry! One of the "angels" just so happened to be wearing a #41 jersey so we had to stop for a picture.

#41 with Angel #41

We also managed to get a picture with Eric Tillman as well. Apparently, had we arrived earlier we might have been able to meet a certain Mr. Kent Austin as he had apparently been out in the lobby just shortly prior to our arrival. Oh well, maybe next Grey Cup!

Afterwards we headed to Riderville. I had been able to score advance tickets to Riderville through the U of R Alumni Association. The tickets had said we could by-pass the line and head straight in through a VIP door. When we got there we found that security was rather surly and they forced us to get into the rather long line to get in. Have a look for yourself:

The line to get into Riderville

Naturally, as we are 10 people from the door -- someone from inside comes out to check the line for people with VIP tickets so we got to bypass the line after waiting in line which I found kind of irritating. Planning/organization was clearly not Riderville's forte.

Once inside we made a beeline to the stage as I had been tipped off that Jason Plumb and the Willing were going to be performing inside. He was excellent! I was a bit disappointed that the crowd was not more into his set -- it was very very good.

Afterwards we headed back to our place to grab a bit to eat and freshen up. We had concert tickets to see Spirit of the West, Lowest of the Low, Great Big Sea and Emerson Drive. It was part of the Grey Cup Concert Series at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Our tickets said doors opened at 7PM and since we've never been to a concert EVER where it has started at the time stated we were in no rush... we figured we'd arrive just before 8 and not have missed anything. Well, we were very wrong. We arrived to hear the last song of SOTW set. They sounded amazing and I will forever be sad I missed them. We rushed to buy drink tickets only to discover that the lineups were insanely long. No lie, we actually saw a guy get two drinks and then get back in line with his drinks because he'd have finished them both before he got back to the front of the line. Earlier in the day we had come to the realization that you could have taken the dumbest person off the street and they'd have been able to pour beer faster than the staff at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (these were the same people responsible for the terrible service at Riderville). Given that 90% of the crowd that attends these events are out for a good time -- I think the service was terrible. It felt, at times, like you were paying to stand in line. We bought tickets, got our drinks and made it to the stage area in time to see Lowest of the Low -- who were really good. N was in his glory as this is one of his favourite bands and we'd never seen them before. Here's a few clips:

Afterwards, we heard from people in the crowd that the lineup for drinks was averaging 50 minutes! As we had a bunch of tickets left we decided to get all the drinks we could -- that meant Neil got doubles!! At $9 a drink that makes a mighty expensive double.

Cost of concert ticket $58, Cost of two doubles $40, knowing you could be at home getting smashed listening to Lowest of the Low
while drinking a '40 of Crown for a fraction of the price: PRICELESS!!

Now I don't want you to get the impression we didn't have a good time... just check out this "angel" on the left. She is clearly having a great time and I think I can speak for N and the rest of us "angels" and say we all did -- but man, the way things were set up was FRUSTRATING and I think it lost organizers $$ overall as people would have spent way more money despite high drink prices if service had been better.

Next up was Great Big Sea. Everyone who has ever seen them live knows that they put on an excellent show. They sound great live and have an infectious energy that is impossible to ignore (unless you are N... he's the only person I've ever met that seriously couldn't stand them). They took the stage and put on a fantastic show!! Truly awesome!

We left after GBS. Frankly, I have no idea what they were thinking when they decided that Emerson Drive should headline the show?? I remember being annoyed that they were added at all -- I had bought my ticket as early as possible (when they hadn't been added to the bill) and then to add a country act to a pop/rock show seemed dumb -- but then I'm not really a fan of Emerson Drive.

We finished the night off by checking out Ti-Cat town and then back to Riderville where I spent the entire hour I was there in line first to by my drink ticket then to buy my drink. See a pattern here?? It was seriously enough to make my head explode. Time to head home and rest up for the big game!