So I went to see Great Big Sea on Thursday night. It was a fun concert - there were some opening-night glitches, and the Edmonton crowd was not necessarily as excited as I thought they should have been. All in all great music. But then, I love their style of music, with its Celtic roots and modern flair. They did a great version of The Rover that turned the usual metrics on their head and until they actually started singing I wasn't sure it was the same song I'd learned in Ireland. It's music that actually means something to me - harkening back to the Scottish roots and all that...

But this isn't really a concert review. It's more a reflection on why I don't go to concerts very often.

They're so... ephemeral. You're there for an hour or so (maybe a few hours if the openers are good), listening to great music, having fun with your friends. But then they're over and you're back to day-to-day life and it all just goes away. It's kind of depressing, really.

And for me, there's all the what-ifs... what if I'd actually gotten around to learning those instruments I always wanted to learn to play? What if I'd actually dedicated myself to the arts I chose to practice and gotten good enough to actually perform at something more than weddings? What if I'd been born in a different time or a different place? Would I have had the opportunity to do something more with music? It's all these dreams that I haven't been able to fulfill and probably won't because I'm either too scared/too lazy/too busy/any other excuse I could come up with. It's a supremely bittersweet experience - music sweeps me away - but it also reminds me of all the things that could have been...