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AC/DC In Moncton – August 9th 2009

Okay so the rumours became reality. AC/DC will be in Moncton this summer to rock the Magnetic Hill. The full line-up has not yet been announced even if the tickets go on sale on April 17th.

More info is available at the C103 web site.

Online tickets available here.

Who would really put magnetic hill on the map U2

I attended the two major concerts on the hill. The Rolling Stones and the Eagles.

As far as concert going goes you can’t get much better. The Rolling Stones was a great success. Their music has stood the test of time and today still rocks. Like the Beatles, performers are interpreting Stones songs not only because it’s a sure shot hit but the musicianship is there.

The Eagles were my childhood musical heroes. I remember going at my cousins and listening to Eagles live over and over. I fell in love with “Seven Bridges Road”. Unfortunately they didn’t play that song during the show. Nevertheless this was the best sounding concert I have ever attended. No wonder these guys have been making music since the mid 70’s.

I haven’t attended any of the country shows for my own reason’s please don’t feel offended if I don’t’ include them in this text.

How could we top any of these acts in Moncton. Is it even possible? You’ve got two of the best bands in the last 40 years.

Maybe a Led Zeppelin reunion. Oh man that is just a dream but it would rock and have such a diverse crowd.

How about Metallica. Yes that would make many of my friends very happy.

How about U2. Well, let me tell you, not many bands could bring as big a crowd. In all honesty I have never heard someone in my entourage say that they dislike the band. Bono rocks. He is the epitome of stardom and showmanship. In the end though the songs speak for themselves. Fan favorites like “One”, “With or without you” and “Where the streets have no names” speak to each and everyone and can be easily attributed to a moment in ones life.

I’ve heard rumors lately that U2 is a possibility in Moncton. I surely hope that is true. An I hope the hill can accommodate the many fans.

A Monctonian in Portsmouth – part 1

As you can tell I have not been very interactive in the last few months. I’ve been travelling on a weekly basis and am a little out of touch with the Moncton life. This saddens me a little since I enjoy this city very much.

Just to give you an idea of how much travelling I’ve been doing. Since last March I have 160 flights segments. Of course I’ve reached Air Canada’s top tier(Super Elite) and have access to the Maple Leaf Lounge.

I work out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Portsmouth is an historical little city about 1 hour north of Boston. With a population of about 35000 inhabitants it has all the amenities one would want. A quiet little town that doubles in size during the tourist season. From Moncton take the TCH #2 and follow until exit 187 in Woodstock. Follow highway 95 to Portsmouth.

This small port city has is very charming and has everything a tourist/visitor would want, especially restaurants.

One restaurant that we visit on almost a weekly basis is Jumpin’ Jay’s Fish Cafe. If I were in restoration I would definitely open a restaurant like this in Moncton. Their menu consists of two sections. The blue menu and the red menu. The blue menu is what you’d expect in most seafood restaurants with a very high level of quality. The red menu which is the most interesting includes “Catch of the day” with selections such as Fresh Tuna, Mahi Mahi and sometimes even Wild Atlantic Salmon. Yes you read it right they have wild salmon probably from the Miramichi river.

Whatever you choose you can be certain it will be delicious and perfectly prepared. The highlight of our week is on Tuesday’s when they have an event called “Shuck for a buck”. They have a selection of oysters from all along the east coast for 1 dollar a shuck. Now that is hard to beat.

The restaurants in Portsmouth are plentiful. I’ll list a few that I’ve visited regularly.

• Paddy’s Bar and Grill  -> Great pub food – try their seafood stuffed haddock
• Portsmouth Brewery –> Great local beers
• Portsmouth Gas Light –> Excellent Maple Short ribs
• Agave –> Mexican food that even a Contreras likes
• Brazo –> Latin American food to die for
• and many more….

I’ll write some more on later posts about the nice little city of Portsmouth.

Ciao for now.

Do You Like Technology ?

Some monctonians i know created a blogging site about the latest technoliges. Visit them at http://www.tekeenews.com

Moncton Concerts

Want music this summer ? Well… Moncton is the place to be.

The Eagles, KT Tunstall, Sam Roberts Band - August 2nd

Avril Lavigne- August 9th

Blue Man Group- September 30th

Alice Cooper- October 19th

Lenny Kravitz - October 20th

Ozzy Osbourne in Moncton - no pigeons

I’m a big fan of rock and heavy metal. Although Ozzy Ozbourne is not very heavy compared to the recent releases he’s still quite heavy and puts on a good show.

The show started at around 8pm with opening band In this moment. I love my heavy metal, the riffs where great and very heavy. I must be getting old because I can’t get accustomed to those vocals. I can’t understand a word they say.

After about 8 songs it was the break and a good time to replenish on fluids.

Ozzy hits the stage after a montage of clips where he appeared in popular shows. I particularly like the one where he’s posing as Tony Soprano’s psychologist.

The crowd was very into it as he started with his latest release “I don’t want to stop” and jump started the show with crowd favorite “Crazy Train”. Ozzy plated hit after hit until Zakk Wilde gave the rest of the band a break by wayling on his guitar for about 20 minutes. The fans thanked him with cheering and some occasional female indiscretions for everyone to see.

The show lasted another 40 minutes with more fan favorites. It ended with “Paranoid” and a big bang (fireworks).

Nothing to do ? Go TreeGO !!

A few weeks ago a friend from work invited a bunch of us to go to TreeGO. All summer I would hear about it but never really had the chance to do it so this was definitely a good opportunity. To make things even more interesting, the guy who invited us did it the day before but found it was a little to easy for him. The owner challenged him to find a few people and he would open up the park for us at night.

When we got there we were around 10. The first part of the trail is somewhat easy but it does get a lot more challenging towards the end. The coolest parts for me are definitely the zip lines and the rope bridges. Everyone as a kid, has seen someone doing a zip line on television and dreamed about doing it. Well you can live it there, and about 10 times! The longest zip line last about 25 seconds !!! An advantage of going at night is if you’re scared of heights, you can’t see the ground. It’s an awesome sight too when you look up and you see all the lights blinking around from the people ahead of you.

They dont have a website yet but you can find their contact info HERE. I was actually talking to the owner and he is looking for someyone to build him a website so give him a shout if you’re interested.

So if your looking for an adventure and have an extra $30 in your pocket, head to TreeGO in Centennial Park.

Moncton based Sudoku game

Do you play Sudoku? I have played a little myself when I’ve had the time.

A fellow Monctonian wrote a cool Sodoku web game a couple years ago. I’ve played it a couple times. It’s fun and easy to use. If you play Sudoku on a regular basis you should definitely give it a try.

He has two versions;

The easy drag and drop.

http://www.digitalsudoku.com/Sudoku.aspx

The easier click version

http://www.fiveminutesudoku.com/sudoku.aspx

Check it out

Bathurst tragedy from a transplanted Monctonians perspective

I rarely watch the news. On Saturday January 12th before heading to the Dieppe market and waiting for my girlfriend to get ready I sat down and turned on the television. After two clicks I landed on a news channel and saw a Bathurst headline.

Since I’m originally from the Bathurst area it immediately drew my attention. It felt unreal, like an episode of cops. The more I heard about it the less I believed it. Unfortunately it didn’t make it less real. 7 kids and 1 mother and wife were killed in a head on collision with a tractor trailer. How’s that for reality? Painfully real.

My first reflex was to call my mother to find out if there was anybody we knew. Somehow it would make me feel better. Mothers have that appeasing quality that is so precious.

To keep on keeping on, we ended up going to the Market with my brother and his girlfriend. The conversation was light and you could hear murmurs of Bathurst and the accident all over the market. “This is a tragedy”, “I can’t believe so many…dead.”

Bathurst is a small community with 2 degrees of separation. If you’re from there you’re bound to know someone that knows 1 of the 8 victims. That makes it hard on more people but at the same time easier because in a small community like Bathurst you end up getting real support from people who truly care.

I wish the best to all the families and friends that have lost a person dear to them.