Kows loose in the zoo, cause power outages - film at 11.

Last night I was at Edmonton's Valley Zoo as part of the "On Safari" event, a fundraiser for the park. It was a fairly pricey, grown-up-y event, with $50 entry fees, a silent auction, and food from a selection of some of Edmonton's best restaurants. Oh, and they got my group to sing at it. Either we're moving up in the world, or someone got confused and thought we were five singing cows, and would fit right in at the Zoo.

We walked around the zoo, at a brisk pace, sampling from the food tents and looking at the new Red Pandas, who seemed rather blasé about their celebrity status. I quite enjoyed the Bison burgers, and the spicy vegetables from New Asian Village, which is quickly becoming one of my favourite "not-actually-that-expensive-but-you-feel-like-you-should-be-paying-a-lot-of-money" restaurants. Then we went to the heated tent to set up our microphones.

We had neglected to bring clips for our mic stands, so we were forced to perform hand-held. And the people who set up the event hadn't planned on the extra juice that we'd require from the generator; during our warmup, the lights on the left side of the tent went out. Then, during our fourth song, they went out again. And then so did the lights on the RIGHT side. And so did our amplification. We kept going, though, and when the power picked back up, we were even more energetic than before.

Which was good, because most of the people in the tent were more interested than the auctions and talking to themselves than in listening to us. But we did hush them up during a few songs, and got a small, devoted crowd towards the end. And I'm told there were people sitting outside listening to us, as there were no chairs inside the tent. So, the reception was better than I'd thought. Plus, I got a ton of free dinner.

After our set, we went outside to watch the drumming group sit in a circle and play and dance. I really liked it; it reminded me of going out to Festering Pines, where all the hippies and their children would have a bar-be-queue and play music until three in the morning. I'd like to be involved in something like that again. But for the next little while, I'll probably have to worry more about interpleural pressure and how it keeps the lungs expanded, and less about keeping up with the rhythm of the band. Besides, all the various chemicals floating around that place next summer won't be that conducive to studying.