The Trews rock the
Dragon Boat Festival

 

A: summer weather that.everyone in
the Lower Mainland waits all year for
was late in arriving this year, as anyone
would tell you dugjng the first half of
June. But the sunshine‘and heat arrived on
June 21"; just in time for the 20" annual
Alcan’ Dragonboat Festival. Perhaps
the record attendance of 120,000 at this
year’s festival pleased the Heavenly
Dragon—the deity that the ancient sport
originally honoured—and chose to bless
us with a summer heat wave.

The Vancouver Dragonboat Festival
is the world’s largest outside of Hong
Kong. Over 150 teams competed in

 

this year’s festival, with races running
non-stop every 12 minutes for most
of Saturday. and Sunday. The teams
compete in a 500-metre sprint to the
finish line; a killer workout. In order
to get the mammoth boats to move it
takes 20 paddlers performing well-timed
strokes. To win, a team has to be capable

of maintaining its timing while paddling.

as fast as possible for about two minutes,
Each team has a drummer to help them
keep the perfect rhythm.

Over 4000 competitors took part
in the weekend’s event. Teams were
divided into different divisions, and
from ‘the year-round devotees in the
competitive grouping to the first-timers
in the recreational division everyone
seemed to enjoy themselves. The race
that impressed me the most was the
senior’s division, watching a team of 60
year olds get the giant boat moving as
fast as they did was something else.

The races draw many spectators and
gawkers, but the festival itself also had
some other things worth checking out.
There was a cooking stage
where an “Aluminum Chef’
competition took place, and
musicians

performed

the province by
sponsoring this
event, but their

tent could use
some  livening

up if they really

want to create goodwill. The
main attraction they had was
a ring toss game where you
could win a roll of aluminum
foil. Seriously? I was amazed
} people actually stood in line
| for it. It’s obvious someone
| needs to teach these guys to
how to party. There are so
many great ideas for fun with
aluminum foil: free aluminum
foil hats, an aluminum foil
tanning booth, an aluminum
foil in a microwave electrical

 

where you could win a roll of
aluminum foil. Seriously?”

light show. The possibilities are endless!
The feature evening event of the
festival was a free all ages concert by The
Trews. A year ago I wouldn’t have been
impressed, but their latest songs have
really shown a marked improvement over
their earlier material, so I was hoping
the same would be true for their live
show. The last

' throughout — the time I saw them
day. Alcanreally “he main attraction Alcan _\ive—playing on
gives back to — had was a ring toss game ee

The Offspring
and Bif Naked
back in 2005—
they seemed to
be the type of
band I would
never grow to like. Their major flaw at
the time was that for a rock band, most
of their songs were unbearably whiny.
“Tired of Waiting,’ “Yearning,” “So
She’s Leaving,” and worst of all “Poor
Ol’ Broken Hearted Me,” were all songs
that seemed to be nothing but complaints
about minor setbacks set to middling
electric guitar that really should have
been acoustic in the first place. Even
their biggest hit, “I’m Not Ready To
Go,” could have been written by a 9-
year old. But their latest album No Time
For Later makes a huge leap forward in

July 7, 2008

 

rocking out. And the band has also taken
a huge leap forward as a live act.

Playing to a Commodore-sized
crowd who knew they were getting one
hell of a bargain with this free show, the
band really stirred the audience into a
frenzy—I would have never expected to
see crowd surfing at a free all-ages show
at a boating festival! The band’s latest
material was amazing live. “Paranoid
Freak” is a song that I could listen to
over and over, and they delivered it with
a vengeance. “Hold Me In Your Arms”
is dripping with style and flair, and
gave guitarist John-Angus MacDonald
a chance to show how far he has come
since the band first started. Lead singer
Colin MacDonald was a great frontman,
very engaged with the crowd and in a
contagiously good mood. I liked how he
made eye contact with all of the young
kids on their parents’ shoulders during
his songs, and one young girl was even
given a round of applause at his request.
This isn’t a band that is likely to do very
many all-ages shows, so they seemed
to get a real kick out of this one. “I’m
Not Ready To Go”, despite its flaws, is
a great way to end a concert, and on that
night down at False Creek it was a great
ending to a day at the festival, and a great
part of summer’s official start.