Annie Lennox live in Toronto

-A fan’s Diary

By Andrew Ritchie

Getting There: April 3, 2003

There was nothing usual about my trip from Ottawa to Toronto on April 3rd. The skies had unleashed a horrendous winter storm causing my five-hour bus ride to bleed into nearly 8 hours of cramped travel through sleepy Ontario towns that had been buried in several inches of snow and ice; how typically Canadian! We nearly crashed once, there was a psychotic looking man who kept pacing the aisle and the woman behind me was screaming into a cell phone at some poor dolt who had obviously done her wrong.

When my impatience had nearly reached its limit, the jagged city skyline of Toronto began to emerge from the scrim of sleet, at last. “Thank God,” I said to myself, just as the girl behind me on the phone began to curse.
My relief was intensified by the fact that the next night I, along with four friends, was going to see a living legend perform live, solo, for the first time ever and missing it was unacceptable.

Annie Lennox is a rare performer – emerging only when the inspiration takes her – and attending one of her concerts seems equally as rare, particularly a solo show at a venue that only holds 1700 people. As I said to all my friends who were aghast at the expensive ticket prices, “You don’t miss an Annie Lennox concert; you just don’t!”

My attendance was due in large part to advanced notice from some very kind friends and a collaborative effort to score good seats. When Norm Authier and Heather Zakary, two Toronto natives, were debating whether or not we should go, I insisted and reminded them that this could very well be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. They agreed.

Heather then made short work of the advanced ticket pre-sale by listening to her least favourite radio station to obtain a secret code, which enabled her to access the online pre-sale. Heather is a magnificently determined woman and I couldn’t resist including a recipe for chocolate-coconut cookies in my thank-you card to her.

It all seemed like a miracle: in a matter of hours, I had heard about the concert, paid for excellent seats and discovered the show was being filmed for a concert special. I soon found out that Lawrence Lacandula from Vancouver was also going to attend the concert, as was Cameron Carr: nearly the entire Canadian contingent of the Eurythmics mailing list, where I had met these great friends, years prior. It was the most fortuitous series of events I could have ever imagined!

Once I had successfully managed to steer my weary body through the nighttime streets of Toronto to Norm’s apartment, I arrived drenched and was eager to just chill out. We got into our pajamas and watched the wonderfully campy “Josie and the Pussycats” (a parody of the music business) before turning in for the night. We kept saying in the dark, “This time tomorrow night we will have seen Annie Lennox perform live!” Sleeping, it seems, was out of the question.