Canadians, eh?

Many, many years ago, when I was still in my teens, I went to a Beach Boys concert. It wasn’t a huge arena gig. I want to say it was at Massey Hall, because it was that sort of size, but it might have been another Toronto venue. Anyway, the show was great. Well, it was from the audience’s point of view, but there was one thing that was annoying the band.

At some point, at the end of one of their songs, not sure how far in, one of them (Dennis Wilson, probably) said something along the lines of, “If you people don’t get out of your seats and start dancing, we’re leaving.” Oh, but it was auditorium seating and these kids were polite Canadians. Never mind. It did the trick. When the next song started, people got out of their seats and either danced on the spot or (like me) started dancing in the aisles.

And why am I telling this story today? Because I was reminded of that gig yesterday when I went to see a Cajun band playing as part of a festival we’ve got going on at the moment.

It said quite clearly in the brochure: “Cajun music is music to dance to, music that makes you feel good, a music that makes you want to let go and have yourself a time. Not dancing is not an option!” And that is true. Cajun music is dancing music.

The hall had been set up with a big space in front of the stage for all the people who would be dancing. All what people?

When the second song started, one woman (who obviously knew her two step) got up and danced on her own. 

When the third song started I got tired of bouncing around in my seat, got up and started dancing. No, not up front, where two other women had tentatively joined to first for a quick two step lesson, but at the back, behind my back row chair. Looking around I could see that there were several other people hanging out at the back, all dancing. At one point there were probably ten people on the actual dance floor, often the only person up there on her feet was the woman in red. At no point were there more people on the dance floor than there were dancing at the back. I hope the band could see past the stage lights to us dancing. Otherwise, it would be a pretty embarrassing show. Actually, given the large number of people who stayed firmly in their seats, it was still pretty embarrassing.

God knows what the band had to say about us afterwards, but, unlike the Beach Boys, they didn’t call us out during the show. Perhaps they should have.

What’s with Canadians, eh?