In October 2025 it was announced that the Park Theatre on Vancouver's Cambie Street was to close. The Park was pretty much the last remaining single-screen movie house in the city, and the news of its closure got me thinking about the various other entertainment spots the city has lost in the last decade or so. A few years after moving to Vancouver in 2002, I started to perform in public. A couple decades ago, Main Street alone had many little live music venues where emerging artists could get some stage time. Cottage Bistro, Cafe Montmartre, and Purple Crab are places that spring to mind, and they were just a few steps from each other. They're all gone. Those that weren't killed off by rent increases fell victim to the pandemic and never returned. The song is a bit of a rant against shifting trends and behaviours that leave the city bereft of hangouts where culture can be enjoyed and a sense of community maintained. That said, about a week later The Park was back in the news because it was announced the people behind Rio Theatre were to take it on as another multimedia venue. Still, the sentiment behind the song remains pertinent. To create this slideshow, live audio from a recent concert has been combined with photos taken by various people during my European tour.
Thanks to Wim Visser at Het Karpermeer for the audio and John Hurd at Folk Club Bonn for many of the photos.