For one last night, I was a Young Volcano

May 27, 2013

I know, two posts in the same weekend.  But I remembered that I need to tell you about our concert experience.

About  a month ago, I came home from work and found CJ in the basement.  That was not the surprising part.  However, I was surprised to see that he was forlorn.  Apparently, he sat and watched as the last two tickets were sold to the Fall Out Boy concert he had hoped to attend in Columbus, Ohio.  Sad was he.

This huge desire to go to a concert with his GF was spawned during her road trip with her mom.  They had taken a trip over Spring Break that toured some of the East coast due to GF having a soccer game with her select team.  Exactly where, I cannot recall.  I do remember that her mom turned the trip into a mother-daughter road trip that included some college visits to universities such as Georgetown and ended with a visit to friends of theirs in Pittsburgh.  The end of the trip also included a couple of concert tickets for GF and her mom to see Green Day.  The favorite band of CJ and GF.  Jealous was he?  Green Day green-eyed jealous he was?  You betcha.

So he hashed a plan for he and GF to see a band together.  Their other favorite bands included The Killers and Fall Out Boy.  I am going to assume Fall Out Boy ranks ahead of The Killers for reasons I will explain later.

So there he was, in the basememt, Skyping with GF and watching the last two tickets drip from his concert canteen out onto a desert of sadness.  Since I have rarely seen my son in this state of despair, I decided I needed to hero up and fix this situation.  I promptly proceeded upstairs to my computer and searched for tickets.  CJ had only looked for tickets on the venue's site, so I was able to find them elsewhere-Stub Hub I think.  Then, I did the unthinkable.  I ordered tickets without consulting Beth first. I KNOW!  I am in the future also.  Four of them I ordered for a concert in Columbus (two hours away) on a Friday nite that, rotationally, fell on my weekend to work.  No issues, I thought, we can work it out.  Even if I cannot attend, perhaps GF's mom can go with Beth and the kids.  We get along very well with her and I assume she will be game.  Less thrilling would be to include GF's dad as the driver.  It's not that we do not get along with him, we just don't know him as well as mom.  They are divorced and share custody.  This does not typically create awkward situations except for when I went to pick up CJ at GF's house the other night and went to the wrong house.  Oops.  I am so glad that everyone else thought that was pretty funny.

Anyway, you may have noticed that none of the concert limo services involved Beth as the driver.  She is not wild about driving and a trip such as this did not fit into her driving skill set.

I need to shorten this story, so here is the preconcert Reader's Digest version.  GF's mom was going to be in Chicago that night-not available.  I was able to get Friday night off but was going to have to work 7am-10pm at work on Saturday.  CJ had a full weekend of activities upcoming and GF had a soccer game two hours away on Saturday.  All adults involved in the situation were a bit anxsty that Steve bought tickets.  Children-still way excitied.  Adults-see definition of anxsty.

Determined to make it work, I soldiered on.  We left Cincinnati around 3:30.  We encountered the "everyone leaves work early on Friday" traffic, but made it out of Cincinnati in decent time.  I had picked a resteraunt close to The Lifestyle Community Pavillion for us to eat prior to the 7:00 concert.  We actually made it to the eatery around 5:45, so that was working out.  The meal and the company were excellent.

Now some of you may have noticed, that in the name of the concert's venue, was the word "Pavillion".  It had never dawned on me that this meant "outdoors".  And that a 50% chance of rain was not ideal.  Another potential issue was the fact that all the seats for the concert were general admission.  "Even though my ticket has a seat number on it?"  "Sorry, sir (old dude), but even though there is a ticket number, all our seats are general admission and the only people that will be under cover are the band."  This was told to me over the phone by less than enthused guy at the venue switchboard.

No problem, I hoped.  Oh, and the opening act?  Hollywood Holt.  Excuse me?  I have heard of Fall Out Boy,  but Hollywood Holt?  Or Diamond Dan as Beth calls him.  Oh, a rapper.  Perfect.  My favorite genre of music.

Real long story short...the concert was FANTASTIC!  The weather was in the high 60s and not a drop of rain.  We cut the really long line to get in and got great seats.  Not in the pit.  OMG!  I have never witnessed a concert with a pit before and it was mesmerizing.  Three hours of teenagers bodysurfing from the back of the pit to the front and nobody died.  We split up from the kids, but we could see them the whole time since the place only seats 4000 and is a big grass hill.  They loved the concert and Beth and I did also.  I even recognized three of their songs.  Quite the show.  Diamond Dan only performed for 30 minutes, starting at 8pm, and then there was a 30 minute break before FOB came on to do a 90 minute set.  For those of you keeping time at home, that placed us back in Cincinnati around 1am.  Everyone was a bit tired on Saturday, but we all survived.

Beth has taken away my "credit card on the intenet services", but I am still glad I did it.  I was there for my son's first concert and saw him behave perfectly.  At no point did I have to worry about him trying to sneak anything even though alcohol flowed freely and wafts of weed found there way to those of us at the top of the hill.  I was pretty hungry by the end of the concert for some reason.

So there is the short story of our concert.  Were any of you guys at FOB in Columbus on May 17th?  If so, please remember for next time that it is a non-smoking environment.  Especially in the pit.

And by the way, The Killers were playing a concert in Cincinnati the same night.  At an outdoor venue here.  BUT IT RAINED HERE!  Boo-yah.