Looking for something to do on Friday? The Straight’s got you covered. Here are 50 events happening in or around Vancouver on Friday, February 8.

CONCERTS

American rock band Hippo Campus performs tunes from its latest album Bambi at the Imperial Vancouver.

Boston indie-rock band Vundabar plays the Fox Cabaret, with guests the Red Pears. 

Seattle neo-funk band Biddadat plays the Roxy Cabaret, with guests Francis Henson and Easy Trance.

B.C. Fiddle Night at St. James Hall features performances by fiddlers Daniel Lapp, Kiérah, Kathleen Nisbet, and Trent Freeman.

Coastal Jazz presents New York City jazz pianist Ray Gallon at Frankie's Jazz.

The Ilhan Saferali Quartet performs jazz, rock, funk and Latin music at Tyrant Studios.

ETCETERA

The Taboo Naughty But Nice Sex Show at the Vancouver Convention Centre features provides entertainment, provocative and educational seminars, unique shopping, fashion shows and live demonstrations. Event includes appearances by "sexologist" Dr. Jess (above).

FORUMS

Vikas Swarup, High Commissioner of India to Canada, speaks on "The New India: Where Democracy meets Technology", at the Terminal City Club.

Vanderbilt University's Katherine Crawford speaks on "Sexuality and Identity in Early Modern History" at SFU Harbour Centre.

SPORTS

Dropkick 2099 Wrestling at the Rickshaw Theatre features appearances by DZJ, Artemis Spencer, Calamity Kate, Ashley Sixx , and Mike Shreddz.

COMEDY

Comedian Mike Wilmot performs the second of three nights of standup at the Comedy Mix.

Canadian comedian Kevin McGrath performs the second of three nights of standup at Yuk Yuk's Comedy Club.

Vancouver TheatreSports presents Romance Week improv at the Improv Centre on Granville Island.

ARTS ETCETERA

Douglas Coupland’s radical art installation at the Vancouver Aquarium, Vortex, takes an imaginative journey to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, immersing viewers in the ocean-plastic pollution crisis.

DANCE

In Fiction, at Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, is a new dance work created and performed by Vanessa Goodman that blurs the lines between the real and the imagined.

In Blood on the Dance Floor, at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Jacob Boehme explores the struggle of someone living at the intersection of Aboriginal, queer, and HIV-positive communities.

MUSIC

The UBC Symphonic Wind Ensemble performs works by Bach, Bassi, and Mussorgsky at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

THEATRE

Performance at the Firehall Arts Centre of Circle Game, Re-imagining the Music of Joni Mitchell, by Andrew Cohen and Anna Kuman.

Performance at Richmond's Gateway Theatre of the satire Yoga Play, which asks what it takes to find authenticity in a world determined to sell enlightenment.

The Arts Club Theatre Company presents The Shoplifters, Morris Panych's play about a career shoplifter whose life of petty crime is halted by an overzealous security guard and his affable mentor, at the Granville Island Stage.

Studio 58 presents Cabaret, a play set in 1929 Berlin at the notorious Kit Kat Klub, at Langara College.

Performance at the Metro Theatre of the mystery-comedy Murder On Reserve.

The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Thornton Wilder's play of forbidden young love and mistaken identity, The Matchmaker, at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage.

The Arts Club Theatre Company and Crow’s Theatre present True Crime, a mind-twisting encounter created by Torquil Campbell and Chris Abraham, at Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre.

Performance at the BlueShore Financial Centre for the Performing Arts of The Learned Ladies, one of Molière’s most popular plays.

Performance at White Rock's Coast Capital Playhouse of A Comedy of Tenors, playwright Ken Ludwig's comedy of mistaken identities and bedroom hijinks.

Performance at PAL Studio Theatre of Brilliant Traces, Cindy Lou Johnson's play about two lonely and damaged strangers.

Performance at New Westminster's Anvil Centre of Tales of an Urban Indian, a semi-autobiographical play written and performed by Darrell Dennis that examines issues of race, identity, and assimilation.

GALLERIES

Hexsa'am: To Be Here Always at UBC's Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery includes works Marianne Nicolson and Althea Thauberger with Siku Allooloo, Scott Benesiinaabandan, Darryl Dawson, Jaymyn La Vallee, Diane Roberts, Sara Siestreem, Juliana Speier, Nabidu Taylor, Kamala Todd, William Wasden Jr., Tania Willard and Lindsey Willie.

10,000 Ships at the Polyon Gallery showcases a photographic archive created by local photographer and "ship-spotter" Rod Logan.

Discover the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection through an exhibition of nearly 90 paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures in A Curator’s View: Ian Thom Selects.

Krista Belle Stewart's site-specific installation Eye Eye is on display at SFU's Teck Gallery.

Polit-Sheer-Form Office at Vancouver Art Gallery's Offsite is the first Canadian exhibition by the Chinese contemporary art collective.

The Vancouver Art Gallery presents The Metamorphosis, an exhibition drawn from its collection that examines transformation and change.

The Contemporary Art Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in Canada by Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator Kameelah Janan Rasheed.

MUSEUMS

Marking the Infinite at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features nine leading Aboriginal women who are revered matriarchs and celebrated artists from remote regions of Australia.

Haida Now: A Visual Feast of Innovation and Tradition at the Museum of Vancouver is guest-curated by Kwiaahwah Jones and features more than 450 works by carvers, weavers, photographers and print makers, collected as early as the 1890s.

Shakeup: Preserving What We Value at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC explores the convergence of earthquake science and technology with Indigenous knowledge and oral history.

In a Different Light: Reflecting on Northwest Coast Art at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC features more than 110 historical indigenous artworks and explores what we can learn from these works and how they relate to indigenous peoples’ relationships to their lands.

Wild Things: The Power of Nature in Our Lives at the Museum of Vancouver delves into the life stories of local animals and plants—how they relate to each other and how they connect people to nature in the city.

ATTRACTIONS

Parq Vancouver is a 24-hour casino with 600 slot machines and 75 table games, eight restaurants and lounges, and the sixth-floor outdoor Parq.

West Vancouver's Cypress Mountain features skiing and snowboarding lessons, snowtubing park, cross-country ski trails, downhill skiing and snowboarding trails, and snowshoeing tours.

North Vancouver's Grouse Mountain features a Skyride to the peak with views of the city and the Pacific Ocean, plus ziplines, skiing and snowboarding, a sliding zone, snowshoeing, and a skating pond.

Science World features hundreds of interactive exhibits in five permanent galleries, live science demonstrations and workshops, and giant movies in the Omnimax Theatre.

At the Bloedel Conservatory you can take in more than 200 free-flying exotic birds and 500 exotic plants and flowers.

North Vancouver's Mount Seymour features skiing and snowboarding, lessons, chairlifts, terrain parks, tubing and tobogganing, and snowshoe trails.

MOVIES

Screening at the Rio Theatre of Free Solo, which documents the death-defying pursuits of rock-climber Alex Honnold.

Screening at the Cinematheque of The War at Home, which documents the fervent antiwar movement in Madison, Wisconsin, in the '60s and '70s.

Screening at Vancity Theatre of Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, Oscar-nominated drama about a middle-class household in Mexico City in 1970.

Screening at the Rio Theatre of David Lynch's 1990 neo-noir black comedy-crime flick Wild at Heart, starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern.

For all the latest Metro Vancouver event announcements and updates follow @VanHappenings.