Good afternoon!
First of all...where did January go? I blogged about New Year's Resolutions (Which I'm actually keeping pretty well, thank you) and then BOOM it's Ground Hog's Day?
How did that happen?
While we're on the topic of the Ground hog, remember, today is the day I get to start yelling at those of you who have not taken down your Christmas stuff. (And those few of you who still have HALLOWEEN items up UNDER your Christmas stuff. Seriously...take it down!) I realize it's going to be super cold up here in the Upper Midwest, but suck it up. We've had wildly warm temps all through January...take it DOWN!
There, now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you about my most recent concert mishap.
Hubby did good for Christmas and got us Trans Siberian Orchestra tickets for the end of December. I LOVE TSO, I have most of their albums (and duplicates of many, one for the car, one for the shelf in the house) so going to their concert is always a win.
I love going for many reasons, mostly because it's a concert sponsored by the local heavy metal rock station AND the Hallmark channel. So it's fun to watch the grandparents with their little grandchildren thinking they're having some nice holiday family fun when suddenly they're surrounded by face melting guitar solos and pyrotechnics. Fortunately, TSO knows their audience. They put the Holiday stuff in the front and then give the grannies time to leave the arena before the real audio damage is done.
As I've gotten older I've liked large crowds less and less, and I've liked sitting next to people even less. I find myself going to 8 AM matinee movies because I don't want to sit next to anyone.
That might seem nuts, but let's review my previous concerts:
Rick Springfield concert in Wisconsin Dells: Sat next to a nice lady in a wheelchair, but in front of a woman who dumped whiskey sours on us all night.
Rick Springfield concert in Madison: Sat in front of a woman who "didn't really like Rick, just liked "Jesse's Girl" and hadn't been "on a date" in ten years. She got so hammered on wine she dumped wine on the floor, making our shoes sticky, and then she had to be carried out by her hubby before the show ended.
Colin Hay concert in Milwaukee: Sat behind two guys (we were in the second row, I thought I'd managed to avoid this) who spent the entire concert getting up, blocking our view, and getting more beer.
Norah Jones concert in Milwaukee: Stood behind two women in line for the bathroom who griped about how the line at the men's room was too long and men shouldn't have their own restroom at all. These were the same women who said they didn't like football, and had spent much of the Packers' Superbowl in New Orleans in the bathroom. It was all I could do not to slap them both.
These are just a few of my concert mishaps and negative human interaction. But TSO is really a family friendly thing so I figured the amount of alcohol infused nonsense would be much less.
I was wrong.
We got there a bit early so we could be settled in our seats and get a couple bottles of water BEFORE the show started.
Oh how I wish the people next to us thought the same.
I'm not going to comment on the number of people who walked in our line of site to go get more drinks. I mean, what's the point of going to a concert if you're just going to be leaving the arena every ten minutes to get more drinks? Buy the CD and stay home!
However, the people next to us were a special kind of concert mess.
1) They got there late.
I don't mean a little late, like oops they got hung up at security. No I mean they got there 40 minutes after the concert started. It was long enough for me to feel confident that the three seats next to me were not taken and therefore we could pile our winter coats and stuff on one of the seats.
When they came lumbering in OF COURSE they didn't take the two seats away from us. Nope. they sat in the two right next to us, giving THEM the buffer chair and forcing me to cram all our stuff under my chair.
2) They smelled of beer and cigarettes.
They'd clearly been pregaming heavily both with the beer and with the smoking just so they wouldn't have to leave their seats. I don't mind a little beer and smoke smell, but this was like sitting next to a case of lit Camels that had been rolled in beer.
3) But that wasn't all...
Dude sitting right next to me had apparently tried to cover the smoke and beer smell by a) NOT SHOWERING FOR AND EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME 9like a month) and b) THEN DRENCHING HIMSELF IN COLOGNE.
The body odor and the heavy cologne were WORSE than the smoke and beer. It was the perfect storm of smells that would make one gag, made all the more stronger by the aforementioned pyrotechnics which heated up the arena.
It was all I could do not to gag.
Now, TSO breaks their concerts up into three parts, and give concert goers a couple times to leave before the end. That sounds weird, but it's a good long concert and not all their stuff is for everyone. The people at the end of our row left after the first hour, leaving six seats to the right of Stinky empty. Do you think they moved so that we could all breath air that wasn't clouded with alcohol and Drakkar? (Or English Leather...Polo...whatever it was it was too much!)
Of COURSE NOT!
Would I be blogging about this if they had?
Nope, those two super smelly latecomers stayed until the bitter end. They never moved, they never went to use the restrooms or anything. They just sat next to me and sweat out horrible smells.
All that being said, I do love TSO and Hubby and I had a blast the whole night. I just had to share that once again I do not leave a concert unscathed!
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