For the first mini project of my Revive25 in 2025, I reflected on my 2024 memories and which moments were most special for me. One of my favourites was the synchronicity with our trip to Amsterdam. (click the link to read my blog post introducing my Revive25 in 2025 Project)
My husband had a business trip at the same time as our daughter was going to be in Amsterdam. I couldn't believe our luck. The timing wasn't ideal for me. I would only be able to stay for four nights and come back earlier than my husband would. I wondered whether it was worth making the trip. I researched what events were happening, what concerts and the tulip festival events.
Imagine my surprise when I realized one of my favourite bands was playing the night we would arrive. While looking for the venue on a map I noticed the nearby “Olympic Arena”. I had forgotten that Amsterdam was an Olympic City. Another thing on my bucket list is to visit Olympic host cities, especially if they have venues or Olympic rings to see.
The concert was sold out. Every day I checked for peer to peer ticket sales but it seemed impossible to get a ticket this way. I looked at StubHub that I had never used before. I monitored ticket prices for a couple of weeks. The day before we were leaving, I bought two tickets that were lower priced than they had previously been.
My favourite number is twenty. When we were in the limo on the way to the airport, I noticed the sign on the window saying our car number was 020, my favourite number. I looked at my husband and gave him a knowing smile. At the airport, I noticed our boarding time was 20:20. Our flight had a delay, but I relaxed. Everything's going to be okay.
When the tickets proved to be legitimate as we entered the venue, I had tears in my eyes. I hadn't wanted to get my hopes too high in case it didn't work out. I went straight to the merchandise counter and couldn't believe the t-shirt they had for this tour. They used the design from their first album that includes music instruments and microphones and rather than surrounding the name of the album like they originally did, they created a number 20 (for 20th anniversary of the album release). Perfect for me!
During my Revive55 Project in 2019, I started a concert album showcasing our concert tickets but then I got overwhelmed trying to include them all. What I realized was that they weren't all special. Some of the concerts, I barely remembered and weren't bands I loved. I organized the ticket stubs but also wanted to include my favourite photos, set lists and paper memorabilia for my favourite bands but never completed it. It's sad that we don't get ticket stubs anymore. I have probably lost some of my tickets with technology changes, but I took this opportunity to screen capture the tickets I had on my phone.
For this mini-project, I wanted to complete the Keane pages in my concert album and create highlight videos of my favourite captured moments from the concerts. These tasks ended up being a lot more involved than I anticipated but it was worth the effort.
Some of my photos were in my photos app on my computer (synced to my phone) but older ones were on an older computer so I revived them by copying them to my photos app. Some of my photos were not digitized. They were cropped and taped in my photo albums. I revived them by taking the negatives to a photo lab where I received digital files and prints to include in the concert album. Doing this reminded me that I have many photos that I want to revive from my negatives before that technology is obsolete.
I love the chronology of my family photo albums, but combining my memories in my concert album from the eleven Keane concerts I have attended is extra special. I can relive those moments by looking in one place rather than 11 different albums.
While working on the pages, I printed blog posts I wrote about my trip to England to see them in concert in 2018 and more details about the Amsterdam concert.
I created two highlight videos. For one of them, I combined videos of my favourite songs over the years. I often recorded the same songs, so having them back to back from various years was interesting. The second highlight videos were of special moments I captured, whether they were favourite songs I only witnessed once or when they had changed lyrics. For example, when they performed Fly To Me in 2007, instead of singing "When I'm far away from the places we've grown" I captured him singing "When I'm far away from Lake Ontariiiio". I love when bands refer to the places where they're performing.
I understand why I procrastinated from completing the album, realizing how much time and effort it took to complete for just one artist. I read a quote while I was working on it that one reason we procrastinate is we anticipate the hassle. We think about everything we need to do to complete a task and get discouraged from starting. This was the most involved artist so the others won't be as challenging. I am happy that this mini project motivated me to complete these pages. Loving the completed pages will motivate me to continue to complete more pages.
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