Like a World’s Fair, with Hicks

Last Saturday some friends and I ventured into deepest, darkest Vaughan to see an old high-school chum play at Windy O’Neill’s Irish Pub. I knew the area fairly well, having visited Vaughan Mills Mall on several previous occasions. This, however, was my first time parking on the other side of Highway 7.

The cluster of buildings down Interchange Way is alternately known as either “The Interchange Retail Power Centre” or just “The Interchange”. Whatever the case, It’s huge, and includes an IKEA, an AMC Theaters complex and the hilariously-named restaurant Sam and Pete’s Cocktails ‘N’ Chow.

“Hi, and welcome to Sam and Pete’s… Can I start you off with some cocktails or are you ready to order some chow?”

Classy.

Back at Windy’s the chow was deep-fried and the band was rockin’… The only low point of the evening came when a friend of the keyboardist was invited to guest on lead vocals for everyone’s Blues favourite “Mustang Sally”. The mulleted fellow who took the mic managed to sing all the notes around the right ones and terrify the 416-ers in the audience with his sudden James Brown-style splits. I swear to god that if three more guys just like him appeared on the dance floor I would have tripped the fire alarm and ran for my dear life. Apologies to the band, but that guy was creepy!

But as it happened, I got only a taste of suburbia, and before you knew it was safely tucked in to my downtown bed with the soothing sounds of fire engine sirens and drunken clubbers lulling me to sleep…