This Seat's Taken

 Okay, this whole Travis Scott tragedy. I am more of the "Is there assigned seating?" age now. Whom am I kidding, I have always been that age. ANYWAY, I was at a Toad the Wet Sprocket concert decades ago. It was during their farewell tour (before they reformed again.) Point is, Toad is not the place where you'd expect a mosh pit. AND YET. Yup, there I was, down front and when Toad started the entire crowd pushed forward, crushing and mashing together. The girl next to me grabbed my hair at one point, yanking me down into the chaos. I had to elbow at least two people in the stomachs to get out of that mess. When I finally made it to the grass (with my ex) and we were watching the melee from a safe distance, Glen had stopped the entire concert and refused to return to the stage until people chilled the "f&*k" out. I think it took at least five to ten minutes to get the dumbass crowd under control. I mean, it is dangerous enough for me to just stand up let alone be in a crowd of moronic drunks crashing into a stage. Never again.

I cannot imagine the fear and panic that was happening inside that crowd in Huston. It saddens me. There is nothing that compares to that exhilaration and sheer joy a concert experience brings. I have learned to experience it differently. Safely. Probably too safely for some. I of course am older and not daring. Ready to sacrifice that euphoria for safe keeping.

Just give me a seat and I will be blissed out without having to elbow anyone. Promise. 

I'm With Not Stupid

For my birthday Jen got us tickets to "The Last Summer On Earth" tour with K.T Tunstall, Better Than Ezra, and Barenaked Ladies. Total 90's throwback to college and our days as roommates. We even had ZIMA.

Jen was most excited to see BTE where as I had already seen BNL a number of times and when people ask me "What is the best concert you have seen" I always say Barenaked Ladies. I was curious to see how they would be without Steven Page, also now that I'm not in my twenties.

I won't lie, it wasn't the same. But neither are we.

Jen would catch me watching the crowd as much or more than the stage. Watching people relive those mileposts that songs mark in our lives. I was imagining what the songs meant to them. Did they once play them on their portable CD players that plugged into their tape players in their cars with windows that had handles on them on their way to work/college? Did they lose their virginity to them? A few rows in front of us a former hippie and his son were dancing together. Did this Dad play these songs for his son in the car when he took him for drives to get him to sleep? Who knows, but I love all the possibilities.

Couples were dancing together. Badly. I can safely posit that 85% of the population has no rhythm, thankfully this doesn't stop them from daring to dance in public. A single father had his six year old daughter with him and they both danced and danced the whole time. This still makes me smile.

I smiled so much my face hurt. We giggled. We sang. I took video of Kevin Griffin of BTE singing "Tiny Dancer" but what you can hear is a lot of me singing in the background. We made friends with all the people sitting around us. It never fails, someone thinks they know me from somewhere. They stare at me, get this look on their face "Don't I know you?" I said "Most people think they do." She bolted up straighter "ARE YOU FAMOUS?" Then it's talk, giggles, nostalgia, mileposts.


A person's soundtrack is forever evolving. It is as alive as you make it. Jen and I aren't twenty anymore, even if we giggle like it. We still have the same inside jokes and are making new ones everyday.

We sing, we laugh, we smile. We make mileposts.