Harley certainly managed to disappoint a lot of Canadians by shortchanging us with their displays. Everyone I ran into during the event had something derogatory to say, and "Rip-off" was the most common exclamation. Another post on Sportster.org that responded to mine provides an additional point of view. From Craig, in Toronto: I will go one step further and say that it downright sucked. Here was my analysis that I posted to another list. It is surprising how close our analysis were... The DISPLAYS Did anyone make it to Molson Park for the concert of the century? I would rename this, "The Half Assed Canadian version of the Road Show". Let's start with the displays: Seems that HD only brought two of their big displays to Canada, and left the Machine Exhibit south of the border. One of the Tour People told me they had trouble getting it across the border - sure. Another local who helped setup said that HD only set-up 40% of what they actually brought. The reality is that they knew the turnout was going to be low, and decided to cut costs as much as possible. I was really pissed about this because the pictures from other stops showed some very cool displays including a wall of gas tanks from over the years. The Ride Display was pretty good with all the new bikes in one spot. I nearly dropped the most expensive bike - the special edition Road King. Quite funny actually; the kick stand was not all the way down when I got off the bike, and it started to fall. Ford had a big display in the US. They took a pass on the Canadian show. Not sure why because they had sent out a mailing to all Ford truck owners in Canada advertising that they would be there. The MUSIC The key word to whoever booked the bands was "cheap". April Wine, Journey, and the Doors (minus Jimmy, and John Densmore?), how pathetic and cheap could they get? The US cities had bands like Kid Rock, Blues Traveler, Tim McGraw, Ted Nugent, Marshall Tucker Band, Nickelback, Stone Temple Pilots, Aerosmith, and others. Yes, I know everyone has different musical tastes, and some (maybe most) of you would not like Kid Rock for example. But my point is that we got the "B" pool talent. Note that Journey and The Doors are scheduled to do other stops, but were not the main attractions. The only bright spot was Biff Naked. She put on a really good set. But I am sure she also came pretty cheap. Was it worth $50? Yes, but very disappointing to see that they scaled back this stop compared to the other ones.
|
