Newt's rock 'n' roll weekend planner, Vancouver edition, May 15 to 17

The big event in Vancouver this weekend (apart from U2) is the release on Friday of Mad Max: Fury Road.

I can't freakin' wait for that.

I still have vivid recollections of seeing The Road Warrior at a theatre on Granville when it came out in '82 and stepping out onto the street afterwards with just a huge buzz on. Everything I saw and heard seemed more vivid than two hours before. It's what they mean by "movie magic" I guess.

Anyway, as soon as I could I went and rented the original Mad Max from '79 on VHS, and was equally blown away.

Toecutter!

1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome didn't really cut it--too much drama, and I never fancied Tina's overblown tune--but the word on Fury Road from the trusted likes of Adrian "Mad" Mack is that the fourth entry in the series is absolute killer from start to finish.

Thrills and chills of a more cerebral sort will be up for grabs at the U2 concert on Friday at Rogers Arena, when the Irish rock legends play the second of two shows that launch their capital-letters-heavy iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour.

Actually, at the time of this posting there were still a few tix available for the first night as well.

(On a side note, please sign my petition to get the band's guitarist to change his name from The Edge to The Slippery Slope.)

Speaking of amazing guitar players, Australian six-string wizard Tommy Emmanuel plays the Vogue Theatre on Saturday, with guests Frank Vignola & Vinny Raniolo. Now, I don't know about those other two guys, but Emmanuel has to be seen to be believed.

“I’m not out to prove I’m the world’s greatest guitar player," he told me when I interviewed him back in 1994. "I just love playing songs and I love playing music for people, and that’s it.”

Also of note on Saturday is the screening at the Rio of Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, director Brett Morgen's documentary about the legendary grunge-rocker from Nirvana.

"The emphasis in Brett Morgen’s slightly long film," writes ace movie scribe Ken Eisner in his review, "is on Cobain’s own words, music, and drawings. There are superbly animated sequences built upon the singer’s own audiotaped thoughts, mostly about his troubled adolescence, as well as material drawn from the personal mix tapes that give this movie its secondary title."

The screening is followed by performances by a number of local musicians, including Petunia, CR Avery, Carolyn Mark, Geoff Berner, Debra Jean Creelman, Noah Walker, and Tony Wilson.

And since it's always good to end the weekend with a little food in your belly, don't forget about the Spot Prawn Festival at False Creek Fisherman's Wharf on Sunday. The event includes live entertainment, kids' activities, cooking demos, a prawn boil, and prawns for sale.

And if you're wondering what the heck this has to do with rockin', just remember Jim Morrison's immortal words on "Back Door Man": "I eat more prawns than any man ever seen."