A Week For The Books

It's growing. Slowly but surely, the prince george music scene has been on the uprise. I had the priviledge this week of seeing 3 concerts, (two for free, i might add) and i must say, turnout and enthusiasm has been simply getting better and better with every show. Even the bands, it seems, have been able to feed off of the growing appreciation for live music, enabling them to imrove with every show, however hammered the band is.
I remember that it was only a few years ago when the concerts would be held at Growlies pizza. Reaching, (and sometimes exceeding) capacity at nearly every show, Growlies was an awkward venue at best, cramped with youth of all ages. This could probably explain why it wasn't exactly the most popular place in town, at least not among the "mature" crowd.
However cramped and nasty Growlies may have been, it still provided an excellent vessel for planting seeds of musical appreciation among the youth of Prince George. Now, several years of guitar and drum lessons later, those same kids skanking around the tiny pizza house mosh pit, are the ones headlining local venues much larger than ol' Growlies. Connaught Youth Center, Sound Entertainment, and untill recently, the Generator, now provide our local talent a chance to throw bigger and better shows, inspiring more would-be, could-be musicians to create their own tunes. These people will form the bands 4 or 5 years from now, and the scene will continue to grow.
This, of course, all depends on you. If you havent been out to a local show recently, then you really should. Even if you dont like the music, go just for the sake of bearing witness to the enthusiasm. If i didnt go to any shows this week, I would not have known what its like to be defended by gandalf in a fireworks battle with megatron and robocop. I would have missed out on barbarians playing jazz and funk. I would have lost my opportunity to watch the Joker, Leatherface and Jason rock out as one. Its all a spectacle if nothing else. Now if you have been going to shows recently, the you know what I'm talking about. The scene has grown up since the 40-50 people shows of yore and as long as we are willing to go out and dance, mosh, headbang and tap our toes, the sky is the limit. Let's make this town known for more than lumber.
Kudos to friends in Axis Disrupt for rocking a solid show. Also, to the Hellsmen, Vexen, Mamaguroove, Assassin Nation, and Adamant for making my week an entertaining one. Keep on Rocking in the Free World....if you can find it. Peace.