It was five years ago that Red Oslanski and Andrea Green met at The Marquee in Halifax.
January 30th, 2009 to be exact.
They had both come to see one of their favourite bands: Wintersleep.
Red had flown all the way from Calgary just for the show. Andrea was a student at Dalhousie University at the time so it was pretty much a given she’d be going because it was happening right in her hometown.
Plants and Animals was the opening act and they were playing “Good Friend” as Andrea and her friend Lindsay Hansen stood together at the back of the concert hall—laughing and enjoying the night, waiting for Wintersleep to take the stage.
“We were trying to take a selfie together but were failing miserably at it,” Andrea laughs.
It was at that moment that Red and his good friend Matt Pickup spotted the two girls.
“So they came and offered to take a photo for us,” Andrea says.
The four of them grabbed drinks and hung out together for the rest of the show.
“From that night we ended up taking like 20 pictures,” she says. “It looks like – in the pictures – that we’ve known each other for our entire lives.”
“I never talk a lot at a concert — especially not at a Wintersleep show. But that night was different…”
Conversation came easily—especially for Red and Andrea. Once they started talking, they could hardly stop.
“I felt really guilty about it,” Red says. “I never talk a lot at a concert — especially not at a Wintersleep show. But that night was different, I had met her…and well, yeah.”
They mostly talked about music, travels and Wintersleep. If soul-mates existed, Red and Andrea felt like they had finally met theirs. The moment Red witnessed Andrea’s iPod track listing was love at first sight.
“We found we had really similar musical tastes. We were just very compatible,” Red says.
But when one particular song hit their ears, they were pulled out of their magical reverie.
“One song that kinda sticks to mind for that show specifically is ‘Listen (listen, listen)’ because I think it’s a rarity, like it’s not a song they play very often at their shows. So when they played that song, I think that was when we both stopped and really listened,” he says.
That song struck a chord between the two of them. They looked at each other in silence as they listened to the song, feeling completely in tune with one another.
Wintersleep walked off stage to thunderous cheers from the crowd that night and, despite the fact Red would eventually have to head back to Calgary, the pair couldn’t walk away from one another.
“I was driving him to the airport the next day and he (Red) said—it was kind of surprising—he said ‘Soooo, I think I love you. ’ And I was like ‘yeah, I know what you mean, like I think I love you too.’ And it sounds weird that you could love someone after knowing them for two days but I think we just knew that this was it.”
Two weeks later Andrea flew out to Calgary to see Red and she visited three more times between February and April. After she graduated from Dalhousie in May, she moved from the East Coast to the Prairies for good.
Andrea’s good friend Chloe McIsaac knew right away that great things were in store for the new couple.
“…it sounds weird that you could love someone after knowing them for two days but I think we just knew that this was it”
“I was thinking people in Hollywood couldn’t write this stuff. It was one of those crazy, fateful, serendipitous meetings of two people,” she says.
Red Oslanski and Andrea Green got married on August 25th, 2012 cleverly dubbing the wedding: The Red Green Show. Chloe was one of the bridesmaids.
Now, nearly five years after that magical night at The Marquee, Red and Andrea commemorated their love story by once again going to a Wintersleep show at The Marquee on February 1st.
The couple flew from Calgary to Halifax just for the concert— like Red did the first night they met.
“Had it not been for that one show and The Marquee and just the circumstances,” Chloe says, “they would never have had a chance to meet each other which would have been really unfortunate because those two are pretty perfect for one another.”
Even Loel Campbell, the drummer for Wintersleep, had something to say about it all.
“For people to meet through a concert or a common interest, well, it’s great. And it’s cool for me to be able to contribute to that connection—to connect people, I guess,” Loel says. “Cause yeah, maybe it wouldn’t have happened otherwise.”
And that’s exactly the message that Red and Andrea want people to get out of this.
“The message isn’t ‘We love Wintersleep’ or ‘Hey, look at our love story.’ It’s more like ‘Look how music can bring people together and keep people together’,” Andrea says.
The happy couple is also expecting a baby soon as Andrea is already seven months pregnant. They’ve yet to decide on a name, but they have considered some relating to Wintersleep. They plan on continuing their tradition of going to a live concert on or around their anniversary – January 30th. Red and Andrea say it doesn’t have to be Wintersleep at The Marquee—but they agree that that would be ideal.
Photo: Mixtape/Celina Ip