The Concert
Friday, February 28th was the concert. Not just a concert, but the concert. All of us had been waiting for this night for months. And by “all of us”, I mean Zack’s Wife (Kristene) and I. Zack doesn’t really like concerts all that much. In fact, he rather loathes them with a passion. Some people hate children living in poverty and starving or criminals getting out of jail early due to a crooked justice system, but Zack… Zack just hates concerts. I’m pretty sure he dislikes those things as well, but there’s a special place in his “hatred box” for concerts. It’s the Zack equivalent of Davy Jones’ Locker. So, how did he wind up at this thing? That’s a great question… and a wonderful story.
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Concert lineup: We As Human (bleh), Jamie Grace (yay! And single!), Third Day (bleh, they had a Duck Dynasty sticker on their keyboard), Peter Furler (Woo! Bald Australian man!), and Skillet (everyone is a Skillet fan…They just don’t know it yet.)
It all stared this last November. I found out there was a concert in February and told Zack in front of his wife. Kristene and I got excited about it, and the next thing you know it’s December 26th and I get a random phone call from Zack. He said, “Adam, remember that concert thing you told me about in front of Kristene last month? Well, I bought her tickets to it. Oh, and Merry Christmas to you, too, because I bought tickets for you as well. If I have to sit through this horrible thing and suffer, so do you.” Little did he know that I love concerts and that this was in no way suffering for me. I actually found it quite enjoyable.
But there was trouble in paradise.
We had a 4th ticket, and I had no one to take with me. My own brother (Trainer Jarrod) even rejected these awesome floor seats. (Good news about that: by me offering him the ticket it put me in the lead for the Best Man Games. Tiny Alec doesn’t stand a chance.)
A bunch of uninteresting important stuff happened and Kristene ended up bringing one of her friends with her. That’s all trivial and unimportant though. After all, this blog is prided on being serious and only talking about pertinent facts details.
Fast forward to the night of the concert.
We walk into the big dome-shaped room and take our seats. We’re all of 20 feet away from the stage. The music is loud and I’m pretty sure I felt my internal organs shift. I was on an end seat, Zack was next to me on the right, Kristene was on his right, and on Kristene’s right was her friend, Namastē.
Zack started off mellow and he was tolerating it all fairly well. Then the music started. That poor kid flipped out like a baby bunny in a room full of running lawn mowers. It was hilarious to watch. At one point during the show I’m pretty sure he was lying on the floor in the fetal position.
So, We As Human kicked off the festivities and well.. It was ok. They aren’t my cup-o-tea, but judging by everyone else screaming in joy, I think they did pretty good. They’re still a baby band, comparatively speaking, and their pants were kina tight. Men shouldn’t have super tight pants (bellbottoms are acceptable though). That’s enough to cause anyone problems. They were on for about 25 minutes, it was a great way to warm everyone up.
Next up was the Jamie Grace. Ms. Grace is fairly new to the biz compared to the more seasoned bands, but she was awesome. Her sister came out for a while with her and they did singing stuff and something with a banjo. Normally banjos frighten me, but this was oddly ok. Then Ms. Grace said she was single, and I sparked an idea: I sent her a tweet on the Twitter asking her to be my date to her own concert…while she was on stage, and I included a link to the beloved TangentTrails website. She hasn’t replied to it yet; it’s been almost a week. I’m beginning to lose hope on us having a functional and healthy friendship that might possibly turn into something more significant where I get free autographs on Christmas presents and stuff. Her pants also intrigued me, they weren’t nearly as tight as the We As Human fella’s pants were. They almost reminded me of horse-riding pants, but not quite.
Anyway…
Third Day was the next band. They’ve been a band since before the Duck Dynasty guys started growing beards and making duck calls. As soon as they walked onto the stage you could just hear the soccer moms screaming like crazy. The lead singer guy had long hair and a fantastic beard that made him look like Jesus. I’m not gonna lie, I’m very jealous of that beard. I’m pretty sure even Chuck Norris nodded in approval of it. It was that good.
I didn’t really pay attention to the music part though; that’s when Zack and I left for our bathroom/beverage break. By the way, I found out you can’t take bottles down into the auditorium. The concessions people have to pour the drinks into a cup for you. That’s also when I found out I can chug a 20oz Pepsi bottle in 8 minutes. Definitely not one of my best decisions.
Peter Furler was on after Third Day. It. Was. Awesome. He’s a very happy and very bald Australian guy who resembles Gru from Despicable Me. [Picture of Pete to compare with Gru link to the left.] His drummer guy played a makeshift made out of a suitcase. It was something MacGyver would’ve been proud of. It was a very happy music set, which I theorize was to stall for Skillet to get their stuff set up. I’m totally ok with that, because it was awesome…and because he threw a ton of sweat on the people around him. That was funny.
Finally, after 3-ish hours, Skillet showed up. And, as usual, it was awesome and grand and spectacular and very dramatic. I would almost say it was a theatre performance with music thrown in. A Skillet concert is more of an experience than just an event. It’s like going to the Grand Canyon, pictures and video just don’t do it justice–you have to be there yourself. In the words of Third Day Lead Singer Guy, “Everyone is a Skillet fan, they just don’t necessarily know it yet.”
Then more stuff happened, we jumped around, yelled/half-sang stuff, poked Zack to make him look happy, pushed an old lady over, watched the security people get frustrated, etc.
Finally, we went to leave. Our ears were ringing and it was great. Zack’s ears weren’t ringing though, he used ear plugs…cheater. The parting words of the night were said in the parking garage as we all parted ways. Zack looked at Namastē and said, “Well, it was nice to meet you. Too bad it couldn’t have been under better circumstances though.” The reason it couldn’t have been under better circumstances is because there isn’t a better circumstance. It’s the perfect circumstance, Zack just doesn’t know it yet.
All in all, it was a great concert. Next up: March 22, WinterJam. That concert is even bigger than this one. Woo!