Easy Like Sunday Morning…

Ethan finished school a few days earlier than his brother, and my ex asked if I could take him for a few days, and I was like sure… no problem! Little did she know, I was going to ask her if I could steal him away for Thursday night, so it worked out perfect for me. I went on one of my favorite websites, known as Stub Hub, and bought some killer tickets to see Mr. Commodore himself, Lionel Richie…

I had managed to score some pretty sweet tickets that were worth about $130 bucks each, for only $60 a pop. You can only get a better deal with a gun. So with Ethan’s big trip coming next week, and my big test coming next week… I thought this would be the perfect way for me and the little guy to have fun so we went to Toronto yesterday to see Mr. Richie perform at Budweiser Stage, which is an outdoor venue… the same venue I took Ethan to last year to check out Yanni.

Ethan was very excited to attend this show, and we took the go bus to the big city around 2pm, and spent about five hours running around downtown, browsing and shopping before taking a nice hike to the CNE where the stage is located beside to check out the show.

During our trek around the city, we hit the Eaton Center, did a bit of shopping and we managed to find a new 3DS game that Ethan had been itching to get. My ex will appreciate that because this new game will keep the little guy quiet during the fairly long plane and car rides they will be taking the next week to her home in Newfoundland. Ethan was also doing me a favor by putting up with his old man’s old school taste in music, so I wanted to reward him for putting up with me… only fair.

We also hit Nathan Phillips square and took a picture in front of that massive Toronto sign in front of City hall. We did a fair bit of walking that day… according to the google fit app on my phone, we took over 25,000 steps… far more than my recommended 3000 per day. We hit a few stores and did a lot of browsing, and then stopped for a killer supper at Ethan’s favorite restaurant, which I let him pick again cause it had been a few years since we hit it.

Ethan is a huge fan of Wahlburgers, and so the little guy and I hit his favorite burger joint again… much to his delight.

I believe this is the third time Ethan and I have dined here, and we were not disappointed. The service and the food were top notch again. Ethan had what was called ‘The Melt’ which was a burger with mozza cheese, bacon and cooked onions. He had that with a side of onion strings. I had what was called the Thanksgiving burger, which was a turkey burger, with stuffing and squash puree between the buns. It was literally Thanksgiving on a bun, which was delicious.

After eating supper, which was around 5:30pm, Ethan and I still had two and a half hours before the show started at 8pm. This gave us plenty of time to make the 45-55 min trek from downtown Toronto, all the way out to Ontario Place by the CNE gates.

Ethan and I had a better feel for the walk this time out. It took us over an hour and twenty minutes to find our want to bud Statg when we checked out Yanni… and I’m please to say we made better time than we did last year.

The skies were also clear, so we couldn’t have asked for better weather for an outdoor show.

Don’t let the empty seats fool you, Ethan and I arrived just as the doors were opening. By the time Lionel took to the stage, there wasn’t an empty seat to be found… and even the grass behind us was packed like sardines. This venue was sold out and ready to rock.

I’ve been enjoying shows at Bug Stage, formerly known as the Molson Amphitheatre, and I could tell Ethan had a really good time too. He was dancing to some song, even singing to his favorites… and he told me after the show that was the best concert he had seen yet. I was glad to hear that. Here is the set list of the songs we heard Lionel perform that night in Toronto:

1. Running With The Night
2. Easy / My Love
3. Penny Lover
4. Truly
5. You Are
6. Stuck On You
7. Dancing On The Ceiling
8. Three Times A Lady
9. Sail On
10. Fancy Dancer
11. Sweet Love
12. Lady (You Bring Me Up)
13. Just To Be Close To You
14. Endless Love
15. Brick House / Fire
16. Hello
17. Say You, Say Me
18. We Are The World
19. All Night Long

As you can see from the list, Lionel did a lot of material from his Commodore days, and that was just fine to the audience… and he covered all of his big solo hits as well. It was a nice mix of stuff… and he performed the beautifully. Here is a video I took at the show of Lionel performing Ethan’s favorite song, and if you listen carefully you can hear my son singing along:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/X_DaEM5dqhA

Pretty awesome, eh?

A big thing about this is, my Mom was always a huge fan of Lionel Richie. She had all the LPs, and listened to them all the time whenever she was cleaning up around the house… so I’ve been listening to his music since I was three. I thought of her a lot when listening to the show. I let Ethan know what a fan his grandma used to be, and he understood what I meant. He’s a big fan now too…

Like I said before, with Ethan’s big trip coming up and my big test coming next week… I wanted to do something fun with Ethan before all that happened and I think we hit the bull’s eye with this one. We both had a great time, and it’s a night neither of us will forget for a while.

Peter