Chromeo @ 2010 Winter Olympics, Feb 19-23, 2010

Chromeo @ Olympics, Day 1, Feb 19

Back with the Chromeo kids again, and their tendency to do cool shows does not disappoint. I'm flying to the Winter Olympics today, going for gold in the category of "Monitor Engineering for an Electro-Funk Two-Step Band". It should be pretty amazing.

And of course, some things never change. The day started out with us getting pooched by Air Canada with canceled and re-scheduled flights. It didn't make a huge difference, but annoying nonetheless. But - and this is groundbreaking - Air Canada actually did something right today. When we got off our first flight (NYC-TO), there was actually and Olympic Games escort waiting for us! Unbelievable! Then we went through all the security stuff in priority lanes (but I do that anyways with my status... ha, pretentious!) and she arranged for an upgrade to first class for me and priority seating for everyone else (again, I had the status... still pretentious...). For the first time EVER, Air Canada made me happy. Incredible. (I don't expect this to last very long...)

And so on to Vancouver, the flight was pretty good, and once we landed we were literally at the hotel, staying at the Fairmont in the airport. The view from the window was an airplane, nose to nose. Wild. It was fairly late at this point, definitely on the tired side, so it was an early night. Not like there's anywhere to hang out in an airport anyways...

Day 2

First thing's first. It's time for me to get back to the gym, and given that the gym here is directly across the hall from my room, I have no excuse. So after a bit of time there, we got some guys together and hopped on the SkyTrain to go into the city and check out what Olympic Fever is all about.

Turns out it's just a load of people wearing Canadian flags. It's like walking around Ottawa on Canada Day. It was a good vibe, everyone was happy, but to be honest, not a whole lot happening. We did see the Olympic flame, that was cool, stopped for amazing coffee at a couple of my regular haunts, also cool, and aside from that we just walked around for a couple hours. Eventually we had to head back so we could get ready for the show tonight.

Tonight we're at a place called Code 1, which is unfortunately at the end of the world, in the warehouse district on the east side. Once we got there, we were there for the night. Soundcheck was nice and quick, then we had 4 hrs to kill with nowhere to go, so we just hung out, got some food delivered and waited it out. Apparently this is one of the first shows that sold out during the Olympics, and tickets were being scalped for as high as $1,200. This could be a good show...

And it was. The kids were crazy, tons of crowdsurfing (which never happens at a Chromeo show), and it all went off without a hitch. At the end of it all we just went back to the hotel and called it. Given that we're staying at the airport, it's a little hard to go out and do stuff, and we figured we may as well save ourselves for a day off tomorrow anyways.

Day 3

Full day off in Van. I like it. Did the gym thing again today, and then back to the city to hold court at Wicked Cafe and Templeton diner. It all went brilliantly, just as planned. After eating I walked around for a bit to check out what was happening, hopefully find a couple things going on, and eventually met up with my cousin. We were hoping to go find a bar to watch the Canada-US men's hockey game today (only the most important game of the whole thing), so we went a little out of our way to find a quieter part of town where the odds were better.

Not so much, turns out... We thought we were being a little eager going to places a couple hours before game time. Seems we should've reserved some spaces 2 days before! We walked for about 2hrs, tried countless places, and eventually gave up. The lineups everywhere were ridiculous, unlike anything I've ever seen. We even had to wait in line at a liquour store to get beer to drink at home. After a bit of time, it all came together and we were no doubt more comfortable sitting on couches instead of standing in bars. Disappointing game, but whatever... wait for a rematch. Afterwards we went to the Delta hotel for dinner. I had a $200 credit for their restaurant and we did out best to max it out. Fantastic.

Day 4, Whistler

Today hurt a little bit right from the start. We had to be up at 6am to get on a shuttle bus to head up to Whistler. It was the only time the Olympics would send us. Bastards! It was not what I would call fun... So we all piled in a bus, picked up a couple other groups on the way, and 4hrs later we arrive (that's twice as long as usual). The nice part was that we pretty much had the day off - the guys just had a dj set at 9pm, and we don't really have to do anything for that.

When we got there, our rooms weren't ready yet (shocking), so we all went for breakfast, and then just wandered around the village. I asked around and found out that we were right at the foot of the bobsled track, so I went and tried to get tickets to see that only to find out that this is the only day of the whole thing that there's no scheduled events. So basically the only thing I can do all day is walk back and forth across the village, which really only takes about 10mins. Nice. I was able to kill some time by taking a couple pictures of things like Olympic logos, trying to jump in the background of live CTV broadcasts, trying to find coffee (though I already knew that was futile).... It was a nice day though, so it was pleasant being outside checking stuff out. Later in the evening I saw a medal ceremony (I don't know what event, but Austria won gold, Norway silver, Germany bronze), saw Devo play live (weird) and then went over to the Chromeo dj set. The guys were spinning with skiers doing tricks on the mountain behind them, jumping through flaming Olympic rings, etc... and there were about 5,000 kids there, and they eventually broke through the barricade. Nice. After all that, I stopped for a pint at the local brewhouse, appropriately named Brew House, and then crashed. Have to be up at 3am to drive to YVR (thanks Olympic Committee).

Day 5

Wow this sucks. Up at 3am to drive 3 hrs to wait 3 hrs in an airport to fly 3 hrs to San Francisco. PAIN. Thankfully I slept a bit in the van on the way down, and once there just groggily went through the motions. I slept through most of the flight, thank god, and landed in SF to go do a....