Monday, June 30, 2025

Okay, so May and June were pretty eventful. And quite the months of gigs!

First, my birthday. The waifu was stressing over where to take me, having thought up 40 potential restaurants for my birthday. I was like... Babe, take it easy. The point is to spend time with you. Doesn't matter where we go. Even if we end up in a McDonald's due to bad circumstances, enjoying the time and meal with her is the priority. I myself have a list of potential places for our big days, and I pick one out whenever the dates draw near. She ended up bringing me to David Duncan House, a very fancy steakhouse that had great food and ambience. The building was a very nice, old-school kinda place. Very nice, classic architecture. Thanks my love, I had a lovely evening.

My birthday present was a ticket to the Chaos & Carnage 2025 tour, courtesy of the waifu! I was primarily there to catch Fleshgod Apocalypse, Ne Obliviscaris, and Cradle Of Filth. But Dying Fetus was a band I wanted to catch too. Due to due large number of bands, it started before my work ended, so I was a bit late and reached a little into Ne Obliviscaris' set. They're still as amazing as ever, and I've always watched every one of their shows since 2018. Fleshgod Apocalypse was also great, and had a ton of energy. They ended with a cover of Effiel 65's "Blue", which was hilarious hearing it in metal. Cradle of Filth mostly covered their new material in The Screaming of the Valkyries, and I got to hear the new keyboardist and guitarist, who did very well. Zoe Marie Federoff was sick so she had a friend do her vocals, which was interesting. As for Dying Fetus, they were heavy and and tight, and I enjoyed my first exposure to them.

My next gig after that was Deafheaven. Similar to Spiritbox last month, they weren't huge on my radar before. I only had one song from them, The Pecan Tree. Then my friend in Malaysia, Terence Aaron, posted about their latest album, saying it was one of his top albums of the year. I was curious, so I listened to the whole Lonely People With Power album. It was phenomenal. So thanks to him, I saw below the YouTube video they were performing in Toronto and I got the tickets. They were fantastic! Basically picked out the best songs from the album, plus a bit of their older stuff. Amazing vocals and musicianship from everyone. Hearing it live was a complete eargasm and treat. 

On Victoria Day, the waifu and I took the time to go to Port Dover. We went to Hagersville last year to catch the solar eclipse, which was one of the most cosmic, surreal experiences I've ever had in my life. We drove over to Port Dover after and discovered their Friday the 13th tradition, and a very friendly, cozy beachside town. Plus their Santa Claus on a tugboat. We wanted to drop by again, so I drove us over and we had ice cream and looked around the small businesses, as well as walking along the beach and pier with the lighthouse. It was basically a nice, romantic stroll! After that we went off to Hamilton to eat dinner, and I randomly picked Saltlick Smokehouse, which had amazing barbecued food, and an enthusiastic waiter who I had a good chat with.

Last year we received 2 tickets to a rock climbing gym in Markham, because we took part in the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, representing Toronto Cat Rescue for our charity. The tickets were expiring in June so after almost a year we finally went and went rock climbing, haha. I haven't rock climbed in almost 20 years. The last time I did was at Batu Caves, on a real cliff, in the blazing hot sun. And the last time before that was when I was at University Settlement back in Toronto. Onion and I went through a short tutorial on how the auto-belays worked (not something I ever used) and the colour-coded routes. That was something very new to me. All the times I rock climbed, it was always random coloured "rocks" screwed in. The idea of a route being one colour, while sharing the same space as another coloured route was smart. It saves space, allows more variety and if you wanted to "cheat", you could use the other colour rock as support. The waifu and I stuck to the basic ones, and as we got bolder to try the slightly tougher routes, we also started to get tired. Our grips were weaker and we noticed we were failing more. That pretty much cued us to stop and grab dinner. For 2 weeks after, cracking my knuckles hurt, lol.

Towards the end of May, we did Doors Open Toronto, where they would allow the public to access places that normally weren't open, to discover various architectural marvels and places of interest. It wasn't even planned, lol. The waifu woke me up and said we're doing it. Great. No plan, no schedule or routes. I quickly looked at the places and did a very rough outline of the places to go. Mostly downtown, since they were within walking distance. Yeah, no. It was crazy packed everywhere we went. We started at the ZoomerPlex, home of Zoomer Radio, where we got some ice cream, listened to a live performance by Payadora Tango Ensemble (fantastic performances and vibe! Loved the song the couple sang to each other with hilarious lyrics). We also toured the area inside the complex, looking around at very old TVs in their museum, as well as the history of broadcasting the model of Felix the Cat, which they had on display. We overheard a guide explain to another group that as one of the earliest things broadcast from Earth, if Aliens ever pick up the broadcast, a plaster cast Felix the Cat will be one of the first things they receive, lmao. Very cool to see the evolution of the television over the decades. We proceeded on to HMCS York, where we just missed the last group to get on one of their ships. Damn. We looked around and spoke to some navy... cadets I think? They were young, and shared their experiences. Not very senior in terms of rank, but I don't know the official title. Also a very small museum with uniforms and pictures. After that we failed to get to any other locations, lol. Spin Master had a line up so long it stretched outside the building, and told us not to bother. Old and new City Hall were packed to the brim and they also told everyone not to bother, despite there being plenty of time. So we dropped by Indigo at Eaton Centre and looked up books on the maritimes, as we plan to visit Cape Breton and Halifax. And we also ate at the Caledonian, finally. We've been wanting to try it ever since our first exposure to the Robbie Burns Spiel, and trying haggis for the first time.

Another gig we attended was Bear McCreary, the composer for Battlestar Galactica, the Norse Saga of the God of War games, Highlander and so many others. The waifu wanted to watch him the moment I informed her I saw his ad, lol. He performed with his brother and other musicians he's worked with before. All very talented, and great energy! I was most interested in catching Blood Upon the Snow, having finished God of War: Ragnarok a few months back, and man, it was worth every second. Emotional and amazing. The waifu was mostly there for Battlestar Galactica (I even helped recreate a "What The Frak" t-shirt she used to have, and she wore it that day). Prelude to War was fantastically arranged with the drums and the other instruments. Very epic sounding when heard live.

A while later I watched Three Days Grace and Volbeat at Budweiser Stage. Three Days Grace was huge in my late teens. I don't know how I discovered them, but I had a ton of their songs and they were one of the few bands I never removed from my ever-changing playlists. Volbeat, I listened to when Slipknot came a few years back, when I missed Behemoth and Gojira, as they played super early. I wasn't quite a fan of their stuff, but it's grown, and I appreciate them a bit more. Three Days Grace started out with Animal I Have Become, and man, what a way to open. It was basically a hard rock karaoke there, and I could see everyone was tremendously enjoying themselves. I didn't know that the original vocalist left, rejoined a decade later and they now have two vocalists. But it worked very well. Reliving my teenhood was great, and I, along with everyone was belting out the lyrics for almost every song.

Oh, remember us watching The Lion King's stage production? I remember finding out from the booklet that there were 3 young Simbas acting, depending on date and time. We watched one, and found out from Victoria her friend's child was another Simba, the Chinese one. We actually encountered the last Simba actor in-person. We were eating at Lakay Kuisina, a Filipino restaurant that has amazing food, and we've gotten to know one of the owners very well, we're on very good terms with him. We drop by once in a while and this time, the restaurant was crowded with no space for us to sit. Apparently it was the birthday of a child there, and we found out he was the 3rd actor for Simba. His dad paid for about 25 people's meals, at over $600. We even got a performance as he sang after their meal. Very talented!