Usually I delete emails with titles like “You’ve won free tickets” – luckily, this time I decided to read on. The fine folks at Upstream Entertainment – the people who brought Xavier Rudd, Graj Mahal, Vinyl, Sound Tribe Sector 9 and many more to Vancouver - rewarded me for being on their mailing list by giving away free tickets to Crosby Stills and Nash. Not a bad deal. The seats were fairly bad, but $10 and a scalper fixed that.

Walking into the Pacific Coliseum with Jeremy (my concert buddy as of late) we were obviously not members of the shows demographic. Most there were greying, with ponytails – signs of their past. I gathered that many there had probably seen the band in the 60’s or 70’s. In fact, the whole show reeked of the 70’s (pot included!) – I felt like I was in a scene from Almost Famous. The classic rock and the old Pacific Coliseum with its old “boomy” sound were pure nostalgia from before my time.

Nostalgia is one of two words that describe the show: the other is insignificant. While there was a lot of great music played, there was no urgency. Crosby Stills and Nash were going through the motions: they have nothing left to prove and no reason to tour other than for the hell of it. More power to them for touring, but when a singer has his hands in his pockets for a number of songs you know that they are taking it easy. This was the first “rock” concert that I have been to where the entire audience - save for one dancing old hippy - was sitting in their seats. Maybe a third of the crowd got up to cheer for an encore. Pathetic.

I left the arena unfulfilled, knowing that the $50 - $70 most played was un justified. For ten dollars, the show was more than worth it. The music itself was fantastic, there were even a few long spacey Pink Floyd type numbers thrown in. Then again, I could put down the same amount to see a local show were the musicians are hungry to grow and expand. Next time, I think that I’ll run with the little guys.

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