It was the perfect night for a concert, warm and breezy with nary a cloud in sight, and no kiddies tagging along for the ride. WhooHoo!! Date Night with the Man. I like lawn seats for concerts at the Arts Center. First they are less expensive than seats under the canopy, which is huge plus for me as the price of concert tickets makes my eyes roll around in my head like pinballs. I enjoy the sound better from the lawn and frankly the freedom of movement and openness of lawn seating has always appealed to me, as I really don’t like people I do not know, or even some I do, pressing in too close to me. I have a personal space perimeter that is constantly breached when sitting in the crowds of any concert venue. And I can dance when the urge hits with less danger of hitting someone in the head or falling on them. Because I am that much of a klutz. It is certain that I will loose my footing and land in some poor saps lap.
We had the regular under canopy seating for the Ringo Starr concert several weeks earlier and the guy sitting right in front of me clearly hadn’t seen bath water in several days which had my eyes watering from the aroma wafting over from his seat. Between him and the guy with beer breath seated next to me, who constantly pushed his elbow over the armrest separating our seats and huffed out yeasty air, I was longing for the lawn. Or a respirator and spray bottle of Febreeze to cleanse the air.
One of the most entertaining aspects of lawn seats is the floorshow put on by the people around me. You go to concerts to enjoy the music, right? Who needs their eyes glued to middle aged men playing instruments on stage when you’ve got several hundred slightly drunk and or stoned people spread out before you in all their uninhibited glory? The music is awesome no matter the stage effects when it’s Rush and they freakin’ ROCKED the house. But the people on the lawn around us? That was superb. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a concert as an adult more than I did this one. And here is why.
The Dancing Man. There was this guy, a gray haired man in his mid 50’s, dressed in a brown button down short-sleeved shirt and slacks, dancing like a shaman glazed out on peyote communing with the spirits. He was hammering on his air guitar as he jumped up and down, up and down, up and down. His head was rocking back and forth like a super -sprung bobble head. His hands were drumming on drums only he could see in his mind’s eye. The folks around him were cheering him on and he would go through the whole cycle of frenzied motion again and again. And he did this for the whole 3-hour show. Go Man Go….
The Young Lovers. To our right on a blanket were the young lovers, hands constantly touching and caressing each other. Mouths attached like feeder fish to the sides of a tank sucking off the algae. I think they only came up for air once or twice during the concert. I’m not even sure they heard the music. The blood must have been buzzing in their ears from all the hot and heavy panting that occurred over on that blanket. For a while I was fearful clothes were about to be discarded but then I realized they had their hands in each other’s pants. Part of me wanted to not even look in their direction but it was sort of like porn. You can’t not watch when it’s right in front of you.
The Friendly Drunk Guy. There were two average Joe’s hanging out not far behind us, regular Jersey guys with beer guts and receding hairlines. They were friendly and fun, singing LOUDLY off key with each song and declaring their Rush love with the fist pump and holler at the end of every song. During the intermission, we ended up chatting with one of them while the other went on a beer run. This guy was treasuring his stay at home Dad get out of the house event and wanted to share that experience with us, his new friends. How do I know he is a stay at home Dad? Because he told us and how he got to be that way. After that he expounded on how life is made up of special times like this; good friends, great music, meeting and talking with good people – this part stated with a warm and friendly hands draped over my shoulder. Did I mention that I have a personal space perimeter? While I agreed with him on many levels, emotional bonding with a complete stranger over beer and music was not on my evening’s agenda so I left it to my husband to manage our bonding lawn mate and I turned my attention to….
The 4-Year-Old Twins. The couple just in front and slightly to the right of us brought their very adorable-in-matching-outfits four-year-old twins to the Rush concert. Why, I ask you, would anyone bring a four-year-old child to a Rush concert? Once the opening bars of music blared forth from the sound system both girls stuffed their fingers into their ears and wanted to be held by their parents as it was way too loud for their eardrums. It was a testament to the crowd that no less than three different people offered the parents earplugs for them. Turned out they brought them but the girls wouldn’t tolerate them in their ears. I watched the father try to convince one of them to let him insert the earplugs and she rebuffed him coldly with the disdainful looks only a girl can pull off, even one that young. She’s got some game, that kid. One of the girls was friendlier than the other and by mid-concert was clearly quite bored. At one point we ended up playing a fun game, initiated by her as she discovered I was not immune to her flirty charms. She would crawl over our blanket, reach out to touch my foot and I would then waggle my fingers around her head, which made her giggle and fall backwards laughing. And then we would do it over again. Her mother was very vigilant and kept a hairy eye trained in my direction, certain the this strange woman (me) was about to inappropriately touch her daughter and scar her for life. Or she was embarrassed that her kids were bored and she had nothing to entertain them with. I think the latter is probably the case. These girls were really well behaved considering the show ran three hours and not once did they emit a scream, whine or howl that they wanted to go home. This mischievous sprite and I played this game from midway into the second set until just before the encore, when we both got bored with it. Then she proceeded to mimic me by dancing to the music and clapping. I hope I helped her truly enjoy her concert experience.
The Foursome. Immediately to my husband’s left were four 20ish guys relaxing on the grass and waiting for the show to begin. These were the boys I would have been hanging with had I been 20ish myself. We all got to talking and they were excited to see one of the – it pains me to repeat this- “older super bands before they stop playing”. Immediately I felt all 41 of my years when they said this. Sigh. We wiled away the time until the start of the show talking about music and past concerts we had seen, great places to see bands now and other shows coming up we all wanted to get to see. They were well spoken, bright young men looking forward to enjoying a summer concert, so it was a fun and relaxed conversation. As the show progressed they were clearly having a blast, rockin’ out to Rush and hooting out at as Getty, Neil and Alex played their favorite songs. Every so often the scent of very fine smoke drifted over from their carefully concealed blunts.
Rush kicked some serious concert ass. They were fantastic and played the fan favorites as well as some of their preferences. The floor show happening in our vicinity just made the music that much better.
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