A New Era Of Concert Experiences!

 

Good morning!  

Two blogs in a week?  What?

What can I say?  I'm inspired.

Anyway, it's no secret that I've had my issues going to live music concerts over the years.  I've been stomped on, spilled on, pushed, crushed, and yes, spilled on. So many spills! I pretty much figured I was in my "I'm not going to that" phase of my concert going life. I figured maybe I was only ever going to live plays and comedy shows (where the comic is funny, but not too edgy, you know...I'm old).  

Hubby had other plans.

It's his birthday week, so it's not like I can say no to anything, especially since this coming weekend he's spending most of his energy moving Peaches from a crappy apartment building where they continue finding dead bodies to a complex where hopefully they find...no bodies.

So when he announced we were going to see Pat Benatar and Bryan Adams at the Firserv Forum this past Sunday night, I could only say, "Sure.  Why not?"

To put this into a frame of reference for everyone:  hubby is to Pat Benatar as I am to Rick Springfield.  So if Pat's in town, we're seeing her.  Last time was several years ago at State Fair Park when she shared  stage space with Melissa Etheridge.  Great Concert...but two completely different fan bases.

This time around, it seemed like a better pairing.  Benatar and Adams, both monsters of the early Video Music Era, that could and would be a great show!

As all of you know, however, when you get to a certain age, how great a show is going to be has little to do on whether it's worth going to or not.  See...first it's driving to the place.  Where we live, outside Milwaukee, it's always about what else is going on in the downtown/entertainment area.  Are the Bucks playing?  No, it's summer. Are the Brewers playing?  No, they're on a road trip.  

State Fair?  Yes, but it was the last day and by the time we headed out to the venue, fair traffic was pretty much done.  And when we came home, the fair was long closed.

Still...a 7:30 pm concert start on a school night?

But it's Hubby's birthday week. I can't say no.  So we got in the car and had a short and pleasant drive to the venue, arriving really early.

Next hurdle:  Parking.  Hubby was smart, he bought parking passes ahead of time.  And we got there early, so we were on the 4th level of the parking garage instead of the 6th, as we usually are.

Then, ugh, getting from parking to the venue.  Well, since we were so early, and we didn't have to park in the sky, we were only one floor above the skywalk to the venue and no one else was in our elevator down.  I was happy to see that it was only one floor. The return trip wouldn't have to involve a crammed elevator ride. Even with my bad left knee, I can climb one floor.

Oh, but now...security.  I've learned.  I carry a tiny wallet that holds my ID and a credit card. That's it.  I pop that and my phone in the basket and go through the scanner.  Which I set off.

Oh yeah, I forgot my new knee.

I was about to explain when the security lady said, "Do you have a metal knee or hip?"

"A knee," I replied.

The male guard wanded my knee and I was cleared through. No fuss no muss.

"They are going to have to ask that question about six thousand times," Hubby says with some humor.

We were officially in the venue, with plenty of time to hobble to our seats in the top level and get some sodas.  Since I'd brought my tiny wallet instead of a purse, I'd forgotten the bottle caps I normally carry with me to concerts.  I don't know if they do this where you live, but for the last many years they've opened my Diet Coke and handed me a capless bottle. It started at a John Mellencamp concert, and the workers blamed Mellencamp for the policy.  Nah man, everyone takes the caps, so there's always a danger of spillage.

We got in line for a soda before anyone else. They didn't just have Diet Coke, they had COKE ZERO!  (Far superior.)  Sure, they were capless, but still, win!

Then we headed to the top level where we are directed (the top floor is VERY quiet, and I assume it's because we're early) to a table.  There we're asked where our "original" seats were.  We tell them and a lady hands Hubby paper tickets.  

Wait...paper tickets?  

I'm not a techie, but it's been a dog's age since we've had paper tickets for a music concert.  (American Players Theater still does paper tickets because their wifi is iffy.)  So we take the tickets, take a few steps away from the table and check the seat numbers.

They aren't the same as our actual ticketed seats.  They are on the lower level.

Since we are not people to whom random good things happen, we returned to the table to make sure this was real.  The lady explained we'd been upgraded.  I asked, "But, why?"

"It wasn't a sell out."

Oh...okay.

A lady next to me, hearing this, says, "That's what they get for charging an arm and a leg for seats."

Yeah...take that musicians who are old enough to collect Social Security.  (Wait, Bryan Adams is Canadian...do they have that there?)

So back downstairs we go to our new seats.  We are dead center across the sea of floor seats from the stage.  We have just seriously the BEST view!

Pat Benatar and her husband Neil Giraldo, take the stage for an hour of ear-splitting magnificence.  I mean, okay, she doesn't have the range for those ridiculous high notes in "Promises in the Dark" but she does still have the pipes for the high part in "We Live for Love."  From a distance, she looks like Stevie Knicks, but plays like herself.  It was great.

And then it got better.

She played it!  She played my second favorite Pat Benatar song!  

She played "Hell is for Children."  It's a banger at the Bradley house.  But I never thought she'd play it live.  Amazing!

(Oh my favorite song?  Wuthering Heights.)

Her set ended and the house lights came up so the Bryan Adams group could set up the stage.  We were sitting on the end of the aisle and all 28 people in the aisle crawled over us to get out (yes, there was another end to the aisle, no they didn't bother using that.) I stayed standing.  My knee only has so much up and down in it, so I stayed up until all 28 people returned.

And let's talk about seats in venues for a minute.  Everyone acknowledges that we are a fluffy nation of overweight humans.  Why are we making seats in venues too tiny for even normal sized people?  Most of my anguish and angst at concerts and plays is because I'm spending all my energy trying to make myself small so I don't encroach on anyone else's space.  But we're so packed in it's almost impossible.  I was wedged into my seat and trying to be small (and failing) and the woman next to me, a couple weight classes above mine, was trying to do the same. We were, in a word, uncomfortable.  You're telling me these big spaces couldn't pull out ten percent of the seats and five percent of the rows and not make money?  Give us a couple more inches in every direction!  Seriously!

Okay, back to the concert. So the house lights are still up and the stage is dark and then there's this roar of the crowd.  That's when Bryan Adams shows up in front of our section and starts an two song acoustic set at the back of the house.  

I couldn't really see him, but the woman in front of me had a SPECTACULAR camera on her phone. I watched the performance through that.  Crystal Clear.  Seriously, what phone was that?

Then he hits the stage and plays for ninety minutes or so.  It was a great show!  I do not consider myself a fan, but Bryan Adams songs were definitely a big part of my musical experience back in the 80's.  

At our age, concert going has evolved. We aren't standing for the whole thing anymore, we just aren't.

And we got lucky this time around!  Our whole section, with the exception of one woman several rows down from us, sat the whole time.  SCORE!

Now, I'm a person who believes in leaving before it's over. (I do not believe that for Rick Springfield concerts or plays.)  A sports game or a concert, it matters not. Get out before the bulk of the crowd moves to the exits. Get to the parking garage fast and maybe it won't take an hour to get out of the structure.  That's me.  That is not hubby.  He's a 'stay to the very end and the house lights are up and there's no hope of another moment of anything' guy.   He plans for the hour in the parking garage.

So, we didn't leave the arena until "summer of 69" was over and the echoes were gone.  

We joined the stream of bodies moving to the garage.  But when we got across the skywalk there was no one going up the stairs. I cleared the one floor of climbing without too much pain.  We got to the car in minutes.

And we were able to pull forward into an open stall and get into the flow of traffic right away.

THEN...and this is the magical part...we got into the left lane (the one they create because at 11PM there was no one else coming INTO the garage) and we moved to the gate and back onto the street within five minutes. FIVE MINUTES.

We were home and I was in a hot shower and a pizza was in the oven within half an hour of walking out of the arena.  It was like nothing else I've experienced!

So, are concerts fun again?  No one spilled on me.  The wait times for the bathrooms was zero. (for me.  Hubby stood in a line for a pretty long time and some dude came up and said there was another bathroom with no waiting and the guy in front of Hubby said he'd been in the line too long to leave. Hubby left and sure enough, no waiting!) We got Coke Zero. We got upgraded! We got out of the parking structure in 5 minutes!  

Is this a new era in concert experiences?  Is it safe to go to a Rick Springfield concert again?

When the kids officially become adults.

 

Good morning!

Hubby and I have now been empty nesters, officially, for a bit more than a year.  Skippy moved out on Mother's Day last year.  (The timing could have been better, admittedly, but it was sort of symbolic.)

My adjustment to being an empty nester has not been easy.  I have a difficult time getting how much to make for dinner.  I either make way too much, or I make nothing at all.  Skippy is helping Peaches out at the bakery, so we see the eldest child at least once a week.  And Peaches does laundry at the house each week, which is nice.

But Peaches is moving out of her crappy apartment into one that has a washer and drier.  So she won't need laundry.  And Skippy recently received a job offer that may make the move up north permanent, and full time, so no trips down here for the bakery.

We are, officially, empty nesters.  

Except...

Our basement and garage are stuffed to the gills with the kids' stuff.  Bin upon bin upon bin are stacked here and there and everywhere.  Now, sure, we'll get the garage back after next weekend, when Peaches officially moves, but the basement....well...maybe we should start charging storage fees.

Anyway, I'm not telling you all this to complain. I love my kids.  And I think of them as kids.  I'm pretty sure every parent feels this way. Your kid isn't completely an adult until something...one thing...happens. It can be something big, like they have a baby.  Or something bigger, like they buy a business. Or something very small, like what happened at the house a couple weeks ago.

It was a normal evening.  Skippy was sleeping over because of a two-day stint at Peaches' bakery.  Peaches came over for dinner, and we were having a lovely time watching "The Floor" or "Masterchef" or one of a couple dozen other shows I watch with the kids.  (My biggest loss when the kids moved out is that I lost my TV buddies. Hubby doesn't like cooking competition shows as a general rule.)  

Now, in all honesty, some adult beverages may have been consumed during dinner.

Like I said, though, it was a lovely evening.  I hated to take a break, but nature called so I excused myself and went down the hall, did my business, washed my hands, and returned to the living room.

Not one weird thing about any of that.

Hubby is a dear, lovely man, but he does have this one habit that sometimes proves to be inconvenient for me:  He likes to stop me when I'm on my way to do something in another part of the house.  For instance:  His office is dead in the middle of our home.  When I come home from work, all I want to do is use the bathroom, change into comfy clothes, put my c-pap machine together, throw dinner in the over, and turn on the TV.  It's a routine I have to do the minute I walk through the door, otherwise I lose all steam and something doesn't get done.  (Usually the c-pap machine...and then I have to put it back together when I stagger into bed at 2 AM after I've fallen alseep on the couch again.  Not optimal.)  Now, whilst I'm on this quest to complete these tasks, I have to pass his office.  And, without fail...WITHOUT FAIL...he'll call to me:  "Hey, Come in here, I gotta show you something."

Usually it's something fun, like a new TV commercial his company put out.  (He works for a very PROGRESSIVE company and they have a fun FLO to all their commercials.)  Sometimes it's something else.  But it's always a request that stops me in my tracks. Most of the time it's no big deal, but sometimes I really, really have to...get into comfy clothes.  (You know how it is.  Trying to drink all the water you're suppose to in a day, and much of that gets sucked down during the ride home from work and then boy howdy, who has time to watch a new commercial????)  Sure, I could tell him I had to GO, but I was raised, as many of you know, to never admit I had bodily functions. It just wasn't done in my family.  Yes, it's my problem more than anything, but whatever.

On a related note, if I walk back from anywhere in the house and he's sitting in his chair (which is at the crossroads of the kitchen door and the end of the hallway in our house, another centrally located spot) he'll reach out to hold my hand.

I love him and 99% of the time it's fine when his need to see me crosses paths with my need to finish some tasks.  But every so often, stopping at his office is wildly inconvenient or stopping to hold his hand for a second is not optimal for what's going on with me.  (Ah Menopause.  Just when you thought you'd conquered Perimenopause and it was safe to rejoin the human race...)

Case in point: The last time the kids were at the house a couple weeks ago, we were watching TV, something loud, probably 'Family Feud,' and I went to use the rest room. As I mentioned, adult beverages had been consumed.  I returned, having washed my hands, although they weren't quite dry.

What is that?  Am I the only one who has this problem? 

You use the bathroom and it doesn't seem to matter; public or private, my hands NEVER get fully dry.  I mean, I can blame public restrooms because paper towel has become pointless lately and when only air driers are available, what's even the point of trying?  (Years ago, when we were new members in our church, I had wet hands after using the ladies' room and wound up shaking hands with the pastor. I maintain it's his fault for insisting on shaking everyone's hand that day.)  But at home...still the same problem.  Either the hand towel is wet already and is useless or my hands just don't get dry.  Do I have some kind of disability that makes it impossible to get my hands fully dry after washing?

Don't judge me.

Anyway, after using the restroom and washing my hands, I returned to the family.  But I had to pass by Hubby's chair. He reached out and grabbed my hand.

This is really kind of his fault, right?

Anway, so he grabs my hand and then says, "Ew...why is your hand wet?"

"I just used the bathroom and washed my hands."

Hubby pulls his hand away from mine and stares at it.  "Why is it sticky?"

Oh yeah, I may, or may not, have failed in rinsing all the soap off my hands.  Like I said, adult beverages.

Again, don't judge me.

"I washed my hands. Maybe I didn't rinse them fully." I said defensively, wiping my hands on my pants.

At that moment, Peaches and Skippy were both laughing, paused, looked at us as Hubby continued to announce the state of his hand after contact with mine.  And Skippy let out a "oh my god" and they both laughed harder.  That's when I realized my kids were adults.  They were laughing at us, not because we are the parents and we told some dumb Gen X joke or Dad joke and they gave us a courtesy laugh. This was more like four grown-ups sitting in a room laughing with each other.

So yeah, your kids can move away, they can graduate college, they can get married, buy a house, have babies, get jobs, buy businesses, all of that.  But they are not truly, truly adults in a parent's eye until they share a laugh at something small, something every day, with you.

In the meantime, can we just make a rule that there's no hand contact for at least five minutes after someone's washed their hands?