Several months ago, it was announced that Fanshawe College was turning 50, and to celebrate they were going to have a big concert featuring Barenaked Ladies and Hedley! To me, this sounded like an odd pairing but I didn't care because BNL is my favourite childhood band while Hedley got me through my teen years. Then I saw that it was "invite only". I panicked. I sent messages to people I knew who worked at the school: "Can I come?" "How does this work?" "What if I don't get invited?" Then it was explained that Fanshawe alumni, students and staff would be emailed a certain code in order to purchase tickets. I checked my email every day until the code finally arrived! I was in! I went with my PSW, Tanya who is the biggest Hedley fan I know. We went early in hopes that she would finally get to meet Jacob Hoggard but it wasn't meant to be this time.
For me, I had only ever met Steven Page. The other Barenaked Ladies always fell into the category of "So close, but so far away" any other time I had seen them. So I wasn't too hopeful on that front. However, there is a guy who comes to all the shows for autographs and he pointed out that "the Ladies" had all come in their own cars. He also knew whether or not they were still in their cars which was creepy, but it was to my advantage. He mentioned that I had missed Ed Robertson by three minutes which was disappointing, but not a surprise. So I started to eat my sub. He asked me if I was going to be quick enough to get an autograph, and at this point I was just hungry. So I said, "Well, I'm eating." Eventually he went away because he had given up on getting Hedley's autographs as well. Then Tanya and I started talking about something and for some reason, I looked to my right and saw Ed Robertson walking by. Oh my God. I didn't even think about it and yelled "HI ED!!!" It worked out nicely. He asked if we were coming to the show and when we said yes, he replied, "We'll try not to suck then."After I got a photo and his autograph, he walked away and I said to Tanya, "I think I waited 20 years for that."
Schwartz became temporarily lost in the excitement and missed out on a photo opportunity with Jim Creegan!
Smiles for days. Jim asked if I went to Fanshawe and I said I used to. He asked about what I took and asked if there was a park nearby. Tanya explained where the nearest park was and he asked "What kind of park?" We were like, "Umm... one with lots of squirrels?"
"That's the kind of park I like."
I told him how I had gotten his autograph before when I held my album cover up to the stage and he took it. He said, "Get 'er done! That's a hard move to pull off!" Haha. This time our seats were upstairs so the pictures weren't the greatest but you are welcome to look at them!
