The Second Balcony is the place to be!

 

Good morning!

So last night Hubby and I went to enjoy my Mother's Day gift from him and the kids.  We went to see Rick Springfield at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee.  Now, I haven't seen Rick in concert for a few years for a number of reasons:

1) He really hasn't been close by for a couple years.  And I'm not one to get in the car and road trip all over anymore.

2) Many of his fans have had a tendency, in the last ten years, to be out of control hags who are rude to those around him and dump drinks on everyone, especially me. (I will site the "unplugged" show at the Barrymore, the show at the Crystal theater in the Dells, and the last Summerfest show I went to where one of his "front row fans" literally got into a fight with the bass player of the band preceding rick because, well, he wasn't Rick.

3) There is no 3. I just haven't wanted to be associated with the rude, drink dumping drunkards I kept running into at his concerts. Which is a shame, since a most  Rick fans are awesome, and Rick always puts on a super show.  I mean, I've seen him more than a dozen times, obviously I enjoy the shows.  

But I digress.

So we made it a date night, Hubby and I.  We had a quick sandwich and adult beverage at the Newsroom Pub, which is right across from the Pabst Theater and makes some of the best drinks and sandwiches around. The prime rib sammy is AMAZING.  Plus, the fries are actually worth the red calories on Noom.

From our vantage point, we could see concert goers walking up and down the street. It was then that Hubby said the funniest thing of the evening, "There's a lot of Meloxicam coming to this concert tonight."

For those of you with joints that work: Meloxicam is the drug of choice for many of us who have arthritis.  

Hubby wasn't wrong.  I mean, one never thinks of themselves as old, not really, until one sees a stream of one's contemporaries navigating a city block of sidewalk with canes, walkers, and that fun side to side gate many of us have thanks to bum knees and hips.

Hey, when did we Rick fans get so old?

Not an actual group from the concert, but not far off.

After dinner, we headed to the theater, which is a beautiful place.  There's security, of course.  And I'd like to point out that I spent some time earlier in the day swapping vital items from my normal purse to my tiny concert going purse.  I sailed through security.

And then there was Hubby.  

Now, to be fair, Hubby subscribes to Gibbs' rule 9: 

Rule #9: Never go anywhere without a knife.

In this post 911 era, however, following that rule has proven to be a little...inconvenient.  Especially since Hubby tends to forget that he has a knife on him.  It's a tiny little thing, hooked on to his keyring.  

I can't tell you how many knives he's had to surrender at airports, plays, and yes, concert venues. Sometimes he remembers it's on his ring. And sometimes he does not.

Last night...he did not.

So I got through security, which was one lovely older lady holding a tiny flashlight and yelling, "put your hands over your heads" as we walked thorugh the metal detector.  She fished through our wee purses.  Gents handed her their wallets and...keys.

"That can't come in here," she says to Hubby, pointing at the tiny knife (seriously, no longer than a key).  Fortunately for Hubby, we were parked in the underground lot directly under the Pabst.  

Ten minutes later, he was back from the parking garage and we were headed to the Merch booth.  That wasn't a bad line. I did notice that after all these years of touring the Upper Midwest, Rick's T-shirt people finally got the hint and started offering bigger sizes...up to 4X.  SWEET!  We fluffy Rick gals like our concert gear BIG!

Our seats were in the second balcony.  If you've been in these big, old, classic theaters, you know the seats tend to hearken back to yesteryear when people were mostly starving and were shorter than we tend to be today.  Also, in the second balcony, the stairs are STEEP getting to the seats toward the front of the balcony, which we were. 

I settled into my seat and looked around, waiting to see the faces of the people behind me, people who would, undoubtedly, be the ones to dump an adult beverage on me.

There was no one.  Not for three rows of seats, there was no one.

Well, we were still half an hour from go time, so I wasn't all that confident.

Next to us was a family. Yes a family.  Mom, Dad, one wee boy of about 7, and two preteen girls.

"Well," says Hubby, "at least the people next to you won't be drunk."

Silver lining, for sure.

however, between the girls and me were two seats. Two seats which would, very likely, be filled by someone who would have to use the bathroom six times.

Second balcony people don't get anywhere this close.

Time ticket down.  Seats in the row right in front of us, the people in the front row of the balcony, filled up.  Seats across the aisle filled up.  But NOTHING, no one next to us and, more importantly, no one BEHIND US!

The lights went down, the roar of the crowd went up.  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: RICK SPRINGFIELD!

Sure,  in the second balcony we were having fun that looked like this:

but felt like this. That's how much room we had!

No one to the left of me for two seats. No one behind me for two solid rows!  I'm sorry, Rick, buddy, that you didn't sell out. But we in the second balcony WERE ROCKING OUT!  It was AWESOME!  There was a group of women, small group, couple rows up who were dancing and singing with the joy only people in an unconfined space can feel.

Meanwhile, next to me:

The two young girls, and honestly, they couldn't have been more than 11 years old, were bouncing in their chairs and squealing and singing

ALMOST AS MUCH AS I WAS!

I haven't a clue where Mom went. She might have had one of those front row seats, I don't know. She handed earplugs to everyone and then vanished.  Dad and wee Brother also relocated, but they went to the landing above us at the entrance to the balcony. So Dad was able to see his girls having the time of their lives.

Reminded me of when I took Peaches and a friend to the Jonas Brothers concert years ago.  So adorable.  And the fact that they were enjoying MY fave from my younger years was all that much more fun.

The concert was AMAZING.  Rick has always been a great musician, something that was lost for a time in the midst of his teen heartthrob years.  His albums, btw, in the last 20 years, have been far superior in quality and musical interest than his "hit albums' from the previous 20 years.  He played a number of songs I haven't heard in concert, which was a blast.  

As concert goers will tell you, there's a lot of distortion at live shows.  So when Rick started talking on the mic, I plugged my ears to filter out the distortion and hear what he was saying. I always tell myself I'm going to bring earplugs and then I don't.

Well, wouldn't you know it? Those delightful little woodland fairies next to me saw me plugging my ears. One of them tapped me on the shoulder and handed me extra earplugs.

Sniffle.

Now able to hear everything, I was at a whole new level of happy.  When he started in on "Don't Talk to Strangers" a concert favorite, the whole place went crazy.  But NO ONE enjoyed that song more than the second balcony and especially those of us in Aisle B on the left!

By the time he did Jessie's Girl (shirtless), the tweens were in a level of girlish glee generally reserved for only the biggest of boy bands and, you know, Taylor Swift.  

Props. This guy is almost 74!

Meanwhile, Hubby noted that Rick about to turn 74.  "Which means I have 18 years to get into that kind of shape."

I love Hubby. He makes me laugh.

I wanted to stop and thank the father of the two girls for raising them right: You know, sharing earplugs, enjoying the concert properly, not dumping anything on me, oh, and loving Rick Springfield.  But they took off before the encore was over. Which was smart. I mean, who wants to get stuck in the traffic jam of walkers and canes?

We got out of the concert without incident and, I should note, we only took the elevator down one floor instead of two because, as the guy with the liquor cart told us, "There are people on two who need the elevator more than you."

That was the perfect ending to a great evening!