When I heard the sad news of Eddie Money passing away, my thoughts went to a concert I attended in Vancouver in the ’70s while on a high school field trip.  Yes, a “field trip!”.  My geography teacher somehow got approval to take a Gr. 11 class to Vancouver (via bus and air from Ontario)!  I often try to imagine how the learning objectives were described to justify the trip.  We did learn a lot and we had direct experience of the diverse geographical features of the area, but we also had a lot of fun, including a ski day at Whistler!  I am sure we studied the mountains 🙂  I also heard of this teacher’s passing about a month ago, so I had thought about this trip then too.

Back to the concert:  Van Halen with Eddie Money on the bill.  It was big and loud, I recall — maybe more hard rock than I was up for, but all good.  Yesterday I wondered if I could find more details online.  I was able to find information on it to confirm the date: Yup, April of 1979.  Next I wondered what the chances were that I would find something on YouTube.  Well, surprise!  There was a recording of that concert at the Pacific Coliseum that was uploaded to YouTube in 2016 in 4 parts (with still pictures).  Part 4 starts with a favourite of mine by Van Halen.  In another video, I saw a picture of the ticket — $8.50!  (Did that ticket stub make it to my collection?)  Each of us did have to pay a good portion towards the trip, but I always wondered what it had cost to get us all into that concert.  It was cool that our group was kept entertained in the evenings!  I think it was a short notice decision to grab some tickets once we were in the city.

I like knowing that I saw Eddie Money in a live performance.  I will also never forget my high school geography teacher and that great school trip!