Victoria, the strange city... part two

Victoria is a city of the arts.  We have a love for plays, indie film festivals, music festivals, indie bands, art shows, and street performers.  There is a guy that dresses up as Darth Vader and plays the fiddle on the streets.  There's also a guy that uses chalk to recreate famous paintings on the pavement.  There used to be a guy that played the drums and the diggeridoo at the same time, until he "made it big" and got signed to some weird street person recording label.

Even the people who don't make art their primary career like to see themselves as artists who just moonlight as accountants, scientists, or whatever.  In the last few months alone, I've worked with people who have written plays, hosted art shows ("I prefer painting abstract art"), and served as the lead singer in their "semi-professional" band.  And, of course, there is a certain person (who is awesome, I might add) that makes it a point to post a blog post almost every day.  

Last week, while walking down the street, I actually got to see one of those people that have actually made it big.  You know... "big".  The man in question?  This guy:

The man, if you don't recognize him, happens to be one of the two lead singers of a band known as the Barenaked Ladies.  Darlings of the Canadian Music Scene.  His name is Ed Robertson, and he is awesome.

And yours truly saw him last week, a few hours before the B.N.L. played a sold-out concert at the Memorial Arena.  What was Mr. Robertson doing?

Why, he was walking down the street in a toque with those weird bobbly things dangling down past his ears, listening to a song and singing along to it.  And I mean singing along - as in, normal singing voice.

He was also kind of dancing.  And strutting.  And snapping his fingers.  At one point, he grabbed a street light pole, and made to do a sort of Singing in the Rain twirly thing, and then thought better of it.  But only because the pole was about a foot in diameter. 

The best part?

No one on the street seemed to think it was weird.  Because we had all seen weirder.  After all, a block or so away, there was a guy juggling bowling pins reciting naughty limericks.  If a semi-celeb wanted to sing and strut, more power to him.

I love this city.