Wow.

What an awesome weekend crammed full of great music. So much happened that this entry would be pretty damned long if I told it all, so here are the highlights in bullet form:

- We drove to Calgary on Friday afternoon, talked guitars and White Stripes the entire way and were picking songs that we all wanted to hear live. We heard almost ALL of them over the course of the 3 shows I saw.

- The show in Calgary kicked ass with one song that has never been recorded and that they rarely play live. We had met up with Camille before the show so she and I rocked out dancing behind the main crowd on the floor to all of the songs. We were able to hear Meg on vocals for A Cold, Cold Night and I was pleasantly surprised by a set list that included a balance of songs off of all of their albums, not just the more recent ones.

- The drive home was epic as we listened to all 6 white stripes CD's in a row. That was some serious dedication. We drove through the craziest freaking rainstorm I've ever seen then came within inches of hitting a deer. Sean literally got out of the car to check if there was any hair caught on the light.

- After all that, I would never have guessed that Friday would only be the warmup to Saturday. What a day! With Sean being the super-sleuth that he is, we were some of the first in the city to catch wind of the Free Secret Surprise Show that they were playing at a youth centre down in Beverley. We had less than an hour's warning, so we busted it there as fast as possible. 100 people, 2 performers, 10 feet from Jack White. The image of how fast his fingers were moving during the guitar solo in You Don't Know What Love Is, You Just Do as You're Told will be permanently etched into my brain.

- By this point, I had seen 2 WS concerts in about 16 hours. And I was about to make it 3 in 24.

- The Edmonton evening show rocked my socks off then kicked my ass all over the room. If I remember correctly, they played 5 songs off teir first self-titled album. And they played 7 songs off of the White Blood Cells album. That might be crappy for a casual listener, but it's freaking kick-ass for a hardcore fan. They played a version of a cute little song called Little Room that they have, but turned it into the most Led Zeppelin experience I've ever had live. Their encore was 9 songs long. 9!!!

- The crowd in Edmonton was amazing compared to the Calgary show. In fact, Jack thought the crowd was so great that he let us sing an entire verse of I Can Tell That We are Going to be Friends. In Calgary all he did was let us yell out the main line.

A little exhausting and a tonne of fun. This long weekend is one for the books.