Montreal! My favourite city in the country, next to my home and native rock of St. John’s, Newfoundland. I fly in mid-afternoon, cab to my friend’s, change my clothes and head off towards the Metropolis.

One bus and two subway changes later and I’m walking up St. Catharine’s. Or is it down? I ask two young women which way to go and they’re not sure either—and they’re going to the concert. They are TRES excited. I spy a couple of men walking along, the taller of the couple with kind eyes and a warm smile. I ask if he knows where the Metropolis is. He and his partner are in from Toronto and are also going to the concert, and he knows the city well. We all amble up the street, chatting about where we’re from and what an awesome musician David Cook is.

We reach the venue, go inside, I see nothing about camera policies. Walk out on the GA floor, look at the crowd milling already in front of the stage. No way am I going to do that. Upstairs into the balcony, where there are stools and long ledges to put drinks on. Or in my case, to set my camera and iPhone on. I can see the stage perfectly even bathed in red light. I fiddle with my camera, experimenting on the milling throng below me, and send a couple of preliminary tweets.

A couple of disclosures before I get started in earnest.

• I didn’t meet, attempt to meet, stalk buses or otherwise encounter David and the guys. I don’t have that sort of patience or temperament, nor do I need an autograph, a hug, a three second conversation, etc to make my concert experience complete. That's just me. If I had seen them somewhere in my travels and they were in the public domain, so to speak (not having a quiet dinner by themselves, or something like that), I might have said ‘thank you for all the music you’ve given me’. What others do, within reason, of course, is cool with me. I enjoy the fan vids of David signing, etc and am delighted by most of the reports of fan encounters. It’s just not my thing to stand in line for hours and be caught in a crush of humanity and half deafened. I went to the concert, bought a tee shirt and a wristband, meandered out onto the street, and caught the metro back to my friend’s place.

• I’m all about David. That doesn’t mean I don’t love the other guys, because I sure do and have especially huge love for Jeremy Taggert for stepping in and performing magnificently under abrupt circumstances. I did watch each of the others just a little, because from my vantage point it was easy to do. But primarily, my eyes were riveted on that gorgeous guy in the centre of the stage doing the singing and throwing his heart out to us. Because he’s the one who has my heart, soul, mind and free will in a box in his basement. Along with so many of the rest of y’alls’ essences.

Ryan Star was awesome. I like his voice, like his energy, and the crowd seemed to give him a fair bit of love, even those who didn’t know him. Part of me can’t wait for David to come out, of course, and the other part just wants the night to go on indefinitely. “Breathe” is extraordinary, but I also love the energy of “Right Now”.

Ryan thunders off the stage, and the technical crew do what they need to do. I am content to sit chatting with the people on either side of me: a half dozen women in their late 20s-early 30s to my left, a man and wife in their late 40s-early 50s to my right. The married couple just found out the day before that David would be playing in Montreal, and were so excited. The ladies on the girls night out were also very excited. So I explained that I’d come a fair ways to see Mr. Cook and while I don’t squeal, I do whistle at appropriate times and sing along when he demands us to. They were fine with that. No one that I could see right around us was recording but there were plenty of cameras taking still shots. Truly there were all ages there, and the anticipation in the venue was palpable. I soaked it in as all part of the experience.

Then it’s time. The music swells in time with the anticipation building in my head and heart. In the flashes of camera strobes, we see a familiar form standing centre stage, clinging to the mikestand, head down. I wonder what goes through his head at these moments.

Our Set List:
Heroes: One of my favourite songs, so full of energy and hope. What a perfect beginning. Somehow this gorgeous, sexy powerful musician seems so vulnerable when he stands hanging on to the mike stand with his face in his arm. I want to smish him and reassure him that it’s going to be just fine. A few seconds later he erupts into his power, and the crowd calmly loses its s***.

And he knows it’s gonna be just fine. He does that thing where he gazes around the audience looking sort of pensive and serious and then that incredible smile lights up his face. He utters “Bonsoir!” which means good evening, in a nonchalant and pretty decent pronunciation and the bilingual in the audience further lose our s***. We sing the chorus back to him and he thumps his heart half a dozen times, sending the love back to us. I have chills. And blurry vision. And wasn’t drinking anything but water. I wanted my experience undistracted.