Are You Ready Ottawa? I SAID ARE YOU READY OTTAWA?? – YEAH SHANIA, “BRING IT ON!”
 

PART I:

Back in the Summer of 1999, I decided after deciding that listening to Shania Twain’s music had progressed for me from just listening to FTMO to everything she had to offer. It hit me, I was a SHANIA FAN!! All of a sudden I wanted to see her sing and perform live. She was coming to the Fleet Center in Boston! My daughter and her husband said they would get tickets. They lived near Boston and knew some people who worked at the Fleet Center. My daughter thought that would be a good show and my son-in-law is a big Def Leppard fan and Mutt fan, so why not. Now I was getting excited. The tem came and they didn’t come through for me. I was disappointed to say the least. I made a desperate call to the Fleet Center ticket office that very night, just in case. The good news was there were 5 tickets left. The bad news was, they were all over the building. The guy asked me what I wanted to do. It thought a minute and told him I guess not. After all, what fun would it be if we all had to sit so far apart. I let it go until another time figuring someday Shania would tour again.

That day came when the new OFC announced there would be pre-sales for us members. This is where fate stepped in. I know everyone who comes to this Message Board remembers all the delays and problems we had getting our tickets. When the tickets for Ottawa were to go on sale, the Blackout happened. Finally that night arrived. I believe it was to start at 6:00 p.m. I had been watching the other sales, logging on and going so far with those to make sure I had it down as what to do. I watched and waited. Everything was working great. Terry said supper was ready, so without thinking, I logged off and ate. 10 minutes later I went to log back on to be ready. I couldn’t log on. It kept telling me there was no dial tone. It told me that over and over again. So, a very unhappy me sat and watched the deadline come and go and call my Internet provider in the meantime. They said it was related to the Blackout and they had crashed and would be back on as soon as possible. That really made me feel good. So now, I figure whenever I get back on and if there are any tickets left, I will have to take what I can get. An hour later at 7:00 p.m. I crossed my fingers and tried one more time. It worked! I was logged on! I went to the OFC got all in and started to see what was left. THIS IS WHERE FATE STEPPED IN as I will explain later.

When I got to the point of what tickets were there, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It said Flr-Row 8, Seats 2 & 3. Holy, Moly! I quickly went to the end and said process. It churned and churned for what seemed to be an eternity. Then it came back with a message that said there was an error and it couldn’t finish processing. They had made it very clear not to click on that processing button again. So I thought a few seconds and decided what the heck, so I went back and started over. This time I got all the way to the tickets again figuring those are history and now if I’m lucky I’ll still be in the building someplace. But lo and behold, it says that said Flr-Row 8, is still available, but this time it’s Seats 12 & 13. As I said this turns out to be huge!!! I hit the processing button, and this time it sailed right through and to make it short. That was it. The tickets came and everything was great.

Come on Steve, where is part II?

PART II:

Now it is time to wait. It’s about 38 days till the concert. Although I try to think about other things to make the time go faster, each day I am getting more anxious. Finally, it’s Thursday, September 25th. It’s Noon. Terry and I are off for Ottawa. We get to Newport, New Hampshire, 8 miles from the Canadian Border in Quebec. It’s about ½ way. That night the Hamilton Concert crosses my mind. I hope she did well. It would have been kind of neat to have been there since it was her opening night of the Tour. The only other time that chance occurred for me was when I had 5th row seats for Elvis’ first night. Then he died the day before. Bummer!! It’s Friday and we get a good start. We are in Ottawa by 1:30 p.m. to stay with friends. Now it’s getting tense. It’s tomorrow night. I know it will be great. Chris e-mailed me and said, “if you think you’re a fan now, just wait till after the show!” By gosh he was right!

Now it’s Saturday. The women have gone to the Mall to shop. Us guys go to the Ottawa Aviation Museum. It’s a great place and I buy some friends back home some tee shirts. But I seem to be so occupied that I get the guy a large-youth tee instead of a large adult. I don’t discover this until we get all back to the house. We still have a couple of hours before the ladies get back from shopping, so we go back to the Museum and make the exchange. Now it is getting very close to crunch-time. The girls are back and we go to dinner at a local pub just 5 minutes from the Corel Centre. My anticipation is growing. With the concert in the Round, it can hold just about 20,000. EEKs!!

It is near 6:00 p.m. when we step up to the door. It is beginning to rain quite a lot. On the way, there are the usual ticket scalpers asking if we need tickets? No, pal got mine! People are selling pictures of Shania all over outside. They don’t seem to bear any connection to the show. The lobby is so packed that it takes a while to get inside out of the weather. Terry has never been to anything this big. She is impressed very much. We stand there for what seems “forever and for always” but it is only for about ½ an hour. By the time we get inside it is almost show time for Emerson Drive. I am thinking about looking for Sue [Skategirl], butTerry is amazed as am I at how close we are to the stage. Later I find out Roger found Sue. So that was good. She tells me I should go up and get some pictures before it starts. I procrastinate and miss it because E/D starts a few minutes early as they did in Hamilton. They are good, except loud and sometimes distorted and I am thinking: “no, please Shania don’t be that loud and hard to make out.” E/D’s ½ hour seems to pass by quickly and then they pick up their gear and head off the stage. Now we have just a few minutes to wait. My anticipation is humungous now. I can’t think about anything but what’s going to happen in just a few minutes. What will she sing? What will the show be like? Am I overrating her? Who are these guys climbing up rope ladders and what’s their story. Then I realize they are working on lighting. Man I really am messed up. I should know that!!!! Now a big white cloth tubing comes down over the center of the stage. There is one seat to the left of us by the isle, #14. A fairly elderly lady comes in with a cane. She looks like she can hardly walk. She says: “young man, do you mind if I leave my cane under your seat and mine?” I said “no problem.”

PART III:

The crowd is starting to ooh and aah!!! Could it be time? The crowd is starting to scream. There is a very familiar silhouette shadow inside that tube with a very familiar look. All of a sudden a female voice says: ” Are you Ready Ottawa?” We say “yeah!” The voice says much louder again: “I SAID ARE YOU READY OTTAWA??” We said” YEAH!!” The tube curtain rises and out steps Shania in a cool outfit. A kind of aqua-color bra with furry lavender bra over that, macrame fringy thingy, some kind of satiny type cargo pants, and says: “alright let’s go Ottawa!” She sang MIFLAW the first in a long line of her hits, a little over 2 hours worth. As soon as Shania starts belting out MIFLAW, the cane lady jumps up with us and starts feeling the music. It’s amazing, a minute ago, she could hardly move without her cane, now she’s reelin’ and rockin’ with Shania. Later she even moves pretty fast down front to get a photo with her little throwaway camera when Shania stops to sign autographs.

The songs were many. Shania fired them off one right after another like fireworks. I am pretty sure it was the same set list as in Hamilton, so I won’t post it. Most of the time we stood and as I stood there, I was in total awe of this lady. I mean she certainly isn’t very big, so that can’t be it. She is beautiful and of course that was very noticeable being so close. When she was on our side of the stage and came out to us, she was no more than 20 feet away. I got some pictures but I don’t think they are too good. I’ll see when I get them. I got down front once and hag a great opportunity, but just as I was about ready to click it, all of a sudden she got up quick and turned away. I was about 6 feet away.

She sang many of her hits that are near and dear to us, and she didn’t disappoint me. She did maybe the best version of FTMO I’ve ever heard her do. The tears were coming out of my eyes, it was so good. All I can say is that I truly loved it. Of course the pyrotechnics were awesome. I might add that the people in the background running everything were perfect. They made no mistakes. Only Shania made a mistake. She was on the opposite side of the stage singing TDIMM, when she started singing after the guitar riff…you’re one of those guys…when she apparently forgot the words, because I thought what happened. But she quickly laughed and got right back into it with no damage done. I don’t think a lot of people even noticed. It was funny though.

PART IV:

Now this is where fate stepped in. Shania did I think 4 costume changes during the show. On the 2nd one I think this is the right one, we realized she wasn’t on stage, but due to some buzzing in the crowd, we located her in the first lower section off the floor. The spotlight hit her and she sang TWIM. It was awesome. I can’t say it any other way, it was totally awesome. I have never heard her sing this song as well. It was better than on the CD. Now, when she finished, some of her guys escorted her down from the section where she was and down my aisle. I couldn’t believe it. She had both arms kind of out so I stuck mine out. I can’t be sure, but I think I touched her hand. At least I can believe I did. If not then it was close. She was going by fast and she was looking down but also peering out at the fans. I know she saw me, but I’m sure it didn’t register, but I don’t care. It’s something I’ll never forget. So, if I had gotten those first tickets in aisle 8 for seats 2 & 3, I would have been on the opposite end of the row and would not have had Shania come down my aisle. I think that was really cool and fate dealt me a good hand for once.

She left the stage of course like they all do, singing IYNIIFL[IOH], but came back and did YSTO, AMOM, and finished with a rowdy version of RTC complete with pyrotechnics raining down on her. She even flipped her hair a couple of times. I think she was concerned her hair may be in danger. Right near the end of the song, they showered us with thousands upon thousands of shiny confetti. It was all over my new Shania Tee with the picture from the OFC in black and white where we clicked to order tickets. The back gives all the tour dates announced so far. I love it. It’s a great shirt. We hung around the stage for a few minutes after the show looking at what had just been and took some pictures. Then the security guys told us we would have to leave. I slept well finally that night after I pushed all the excitement away. After all, we would have to make the 430 mile trip home Sunday. If I had only known it would rain heavily all the way home from 9:00 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. Am I glad I went? You bet your sweet bippy!!! The bottom-line? Shania got me good and sometime she’ll do it again.

Steve

PS: I took my films in to Wal-Mart today to get them developed. I told the girl at the photo shop, I didn’t think my pictures were very good and was there any way she could enhance them. She said she doubted it, but would do her best. She asked what they were. I told her all about it. I left for an hour to get dome groceries and came back. She smiles and says: “you didn’t give yourself much credit.” I said “why’s that?” She says: “they came out a lot better than you think. They aren’t too bad.” She was right. I just wish I had taken my own Canon a-1 with my 30-260 mm lens. I could have had some real closeups, much closer than Terry’s little Pentax with 35-80. But, I am thankful for pictures as good as they are. It sure beats having no pictures. LOL!

Come on Steve, you can't leave me hanging on like this, after reading the build up you have stopped at the main event!!!!

Gosh seeing the 2nd Photo you were close, and my how the Band have worked so hard to get all the steps right... No one fallen over yet? ;)

Great pics. If you have more, send them to me :D


-Chris

Here is another of JD doing his thing around the stage. He was funny!!

Later in the show. I was almost out of film. If I had only had my own camera on some of these, like this one. I could have seen the lines of her scowling, but Terry's camera just can't do it. But not too bad, I guess.:)

Great story Steve!
I wanna hear about the "aftershocks" too. And what was Terry's impression?

Shania and her "Musical Reforestation Crew!:D

Wow Steve, you must of been posting parts 3 and 4 and my last post just sneaked in at the end, Thank you for the revue - wonderful stuff and so glad you got close to Shania when she returned to the centre stage.

If you could use a couple of words from the song title in future rather than this board's obsession with letters, I can't often work out the song title, despite knowing them all. A sort of Dislexia I guess but it take so little effort to type

"Don't impress" or "No one needs" rather than TDIMM & NONTKRN !

Thank you.. Oh Pictures are great, gosh what a show. Shania looks so pretty.

I like this one.

It doesn't get any better than this!!! My two favorite singers of all time!!!:)

It was far away near the opposite side of the stage, so I had to blow this up and it isn't as clear as it should be.

If you have a higher res scan of it that you can email me, I have a program that could clean the image up.


-Chris