You may or may not know that Southern Living has “The Grumpy Gardener,” a guy who writes a monthly Q&A gardening column, routinely shaming people for “Crepe Murder” or not deadheading their petunias as soon as the blooms begin to fade.
Well, I am going to start a new monthly column called “The
Cranky Concertgoer," in which I will offer no meaningful service to the public
other than calling out bad concert behavior for us all to bemoan.
Last weekend, I attended the Tears for Fears concert at the
beautiful new Moody Center in Austin, TX. We had great floor seats, 16th
row in the middle, to be exact. If you’re a concert goer, you know that
significant time, money, and effort go into attending a concert. There are
expectations set that others attending the concert hold the same sanctity of
the experience in high regard. But sadly, that isn’t always the case.
As we took our seats, I sized up my neighbors to see what
we’d be dealing with for the night.
To my right, I had a middle-aged lady who seemed like she
was going to be chill. But as I went to lower the seat on my folding chair, I
noticed she was wearing a long, flowy skirt that was threatening to get caught
in the hinge of my chair. I politely
brought this to her attention and gave her the opportunity to wrangle her
skirt, which she did, in good neighborly fashion. But I could sense that I had
not seen the last of this brassy gold mane-of-a-textile, that seemed to have a life of its own with no regard to my personal space.
Directly in front me, sat a family of four: Dad, teenage
son, Mom, and 10 year old (?) daughter. I thought, how sweet, a family outing. And
it was, except for the fact that neither kid had any interest in being there,
especially the little girl, whose evening activities included playing games on
her mother’s phone, asking her mother to buy things off Amazon, spilling her
cup of water everywhere, and grabbing her mother’s arm and waving it wildly in
the air like a puppeteer. Directly in front of my face.
Part of me can’t blame the girl, because she and I both suffered from the same affliction: the guy in the row in front of her. One of the most obnoxiously rude concert goers in the history of all my concert going. A paradox to the cliched loud, obnoxious buffoon who bumps into you and makes you spill your beer, he was a maddeningly quiet offender, silently thwarting the main thing I came here to do…see Roland and Curt.
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| My view for 90% of the night |
As soon as the opening band took the stage, his arms shot up, holding his iPhone in a perfect arc of obstruction. The little girl in front of me never stood a chance.
And I guess I never did either, as I *enjoyed* the majority
of the concert through the lens of his camera. He was “going live” on Facebook,
apparently appeasing all three of his followers who couldn’t be left behind
while he attended a concert. In the words of my son, I cried, “BRUH,” which
fell on deaf ears because by this time, Tears for Fears had already taken the
stage. Plus, I don’t like confronting potentially crazy people in this day and
age. I’m not here to get stabbed on a Monday night.
So, I made a conscious effort to tune out everything except
the music…the mom trying to parent the girl in front of me, the people with iPhones,
the swishing of the gold skirt next to me.
And although I did spend the better part of that evening
getting whipped on my right calf by my neighbor’s gold skirt as she danced, she
knew all the words to “Woman in Chains," so I decided to let it slide.
The bottom line is that I did not let these disturbances get
in the way of my overall enjoyment of the concert. Why do I go to concerts like
this? Of course, to see and hear the artists.
But really, it’s to be transported to another place and time, at least in my
imagination. A time before mortgages, aching knees, and children who only eat
one brand of macaroni and cheese.
See, you can swish your skirt on me, argue with your kid in
front of me, and even obstruct my view with your stupid phone. But you cannot
stop me from closing my eyes and remembering where I was in 1985 when I saw the
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” video for the first time on MTV. The feeling
of soaring freedom watching Curt Smith drive that Austin-Healey convertible, sunglasses on, hair
blowing in the wind. As an adolescent, I craved that kind of independence, and
that song will always bring back those feelings of joyful longing for me.
So, go ahead and call me the Cranky Concertgoer, but I will
still be out there braving the masses for an experience that I can’t get
anywhere else. It’s important for me to support musicians I love,
whose music has been the soundtrack of my life. Especially those who continue to
make new music worth listening to, like Tears for Fears. And the old favorites
will always be like a well-worn, soft blanket that I can pull up over my eyes
to escape, even for a brief moment.
Help me make the
most
Of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world
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