My middle kid Simon introduced me to Briston Maroney in 2022, and he quickly became one of my favourite artists. On a deeply cold February night in 2024, we travelled together to see him in concert at Club Soda in Montreal. It was, to my surprise and delight, one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen quite a few!
This week, Simon and I headed in the other direction, down the 401 to Toronto to catch another Briston Maroney show at a much larger venue – on the Budweiser Stage, with co-headliners Peach Pit. Simon and I had also been to see Queen in Toronto in late 2023, and we’d stayed right next to the venue at the Royal York. For me, that was a fun callback to when our friends’ mom paid for a room at the Royal York in 1987 so we didn’t have to drive back home to London after seeing U2 on the Joshua Tree tour.
This time, instead of paying for downtown Toronto in high summer tourist season prices, we decided to stay on the outskirts and drive in for the show. I ended up choosing Ajax because (true story) someone in a rockhounding forum had told me months before that the sort of rocks I like to collect for wrapping rocks could be found in plentiful quantities at the beach in Ajax. I mean, we needed to stay somewhere, and I was planning to visit the lake for rocks anyway – why not combine the two?
Having sorted out where to stay (at about half the price of staying downtown) I didn’t really think about logistics until the day of the concert when I googled “parking at the Budweiser stage” to find out how much it would cost and found out that there is NO parking at the Budweiser stage. A bit more searching showed that while there was parking in nearby Liberty Village, traffic would be atrocious and almost everyone said to take transit. More searching showed we could park for free at the Ajax GO Transit station and it would cost us somewhere around $40 and be a little short of 90 minutes each way. One friend said, somewhat laconically, “if there’s traffic, you just put on some tunes and chill” and that resonated with both me and Simon. The only variables were heading into the core at the peak of rush hour and then being able to find a parking spot.
We rolled the dice and traffic was bad but no worse than any other time I’ve driven in downtown Toronto. It took us just over 30 minutes to go 5 km at one point, but when we got to the parking lot we’d chosen at random via Google Maps there were plenty of spots for the princely sum of $11 for the duration.
Parking and commute sorted, we chose a spot to eat based on proximity to the parking and the fact that my bladder was about to give out. By pure luck, we found ourselves in an open window seat at Liberty Soho. It seems like we probably should have had a reservation, but the staff accommodated us with an open window seat perfect for people-watching on the busy street outside. Simon had braised beef ribs that he deemed exceptional, and I had the waygu smash burger. I love a good burger and this was one of the best. I both regret and am relieved that such a great place is such a distance away – I’d be there on the regular if it were closer. I loved the vibe in Liberty Village altogether – although I’m a small-village-on-the-outskirts sort of girl at heart, I could easily see myself loving living in a place like this. You know those moments when for a minute you sense the possibilities of another timeline superimposed on the one you’re in? It was like that.
So with a perfect parking spot and a fantastic meal, I was ready for the other shoe to drop. Where would the fly in the ointment appear? Certainly not on the pleasant 25 minute walk over to the Budweiser Stage. It was windy and cool but not unbearably so, and we arrived in enough time to check out the merch table and not much else before we settled in to excellent seats for the three act show. Briston Maroney was sandwiched in between Bnny and Peach Pit, both of whom were good enough, but we were there to see Briston and he did not disappoint. Well, I would have liked the set to be about twice as long, but he covered most of my favourites: Paradise, Body, Under My Skin, June. His opener was one of my least favourite of his songs, Real Good Swimmer, but he also played one of Simon’s favourites from the new album, DNA, and one of mine: Be Yourself. And even though it felt like maybe most of the crowd was there to see Peach Pit (Canadian band in a Canadian venue, after all) it seemed like everyone in the stadium sang along to Briston’s most well-known song, Freaking Out on the Interstate, to close out his set.
I’d been braced for chaos on the trip home but it was as delightfully pleasant as the rest of the day had been. We stopped for an ice cream walking back to the car, and while we hit an expected slowdown on the Gardiner Expressway, it was an easy hour back to Ajax. It seems we won the commuter lottery and chose the right path!
I closed out this microadventure doing one of my favourite things in the universe – combing the beach for treasures in the early morning light. My mouth literally dropped open in delight when I processed the sheer volume of exactly the sort of rocks I love most for wrapping rocks. I started making little piles of the best ones, not really even having to look very hard. This sea witch was in her element!
Tell me again why I don’t live near the sea so I could start every day like this, with the wind and waves roaring in my ears?
After an hour and with several kilos of fresh rocks in the back of the car, we headed home. The other shoe never did drop: easy commute, convenient and comfortable spot to sleep, fantastic food, lots of exploring, my favourite music, water and rocks and adventures all enjoyed.
This was peak summer 2025 microadventure! An overnight getaway to see a concert, stopping to explore a place I have driven past literally hundreds if not a thousand times as I zoomed down the 401, exploring a corner of Toronto I’ve never seen, and collecting treasures on the beach. And of course, the best part of it was sharing it all with Simon, my most favouritest middle kid of all.