Sunday night we attempted to leave the house and drive all the way to Gwinnett Arena for the 99X Mistletoe Jam concert. Yes, it seemed like a good idea when I purchased the tickets. Forgetting how freakin' far away Gwinnett is, and the evil, evil traffic that comes with a sold-out concert, I forked over insane fees to Ticketmaster and bought two tickets.
The concert was supposed to start at 5:30pm with the Silversun Pickups, and then proceed until 11pm or so with The Shins, Silverchair, and Modest Mouse. Around six-ish, we are running across the parking lot trying to at least make it in the door before the Silversun Pickups leave the stage. We managed to hear two and a half songs, including one of their hits, and they sounded GREAT. We complimented ourselves on how good our seats were, noticing that a lot of seats were still empty, and figured they would soon be filled by people who were just stuck in traffic.
Then suddenly, without warning, we plummetted into concert hell.
A row of guys filed in behind us...and a group of three couples filled the seats in front of us. The guys behind us were...screamers. They apparently represented the entire Shins fan club and screamed the entire time The Shins were onstage (at one point, one of the guys behind us actually shouted "I love The Shins!" A girl nearby responded, "So do I!" Turns out he had backstage passes and was trying to hook up. She followed him backstage, but came back alone...) The couples in front of us didn't seem like trouble other than being very suburban, cookie-cutter types. Wanting to sit back and listen to The Shins, the first hint of trouble began when the couples stood up. Between the screamers behind us and the standers in front of us (hence making us stand in order to see), our small section soon became the only people standing in the entire arena other than the people on the floor. I mean, The Shins are not a stand up and scream kind of band. Really.
As if standers and screamers weren't bad enough, one of the standers soon showed signs of being a ditzy drunk blonde. Being ditzy, drunk, or blonde is one thing...being all three is intolerable and should be punished. (I'm blonde so I can say these things.) This girl...wow. She was drunk, dancing, and sloshing beer from the first song. With three hours+ left to go, we started to get worried. Would we have to endure the entire show with the screamers and the standers and the beer slosher? This was too much.
After The Shins left the stage, so did our screamers (see backstage note above). The standers, however, just went on a beer run. We sat out in the walkway for most of Silverchair and had hot dogs for dinner. We went back in after a while, since Brandon liked a few of their older songs, but all in all they were full of themselves, not funny, and kind of sucked. We managed to entertain ourselves for much of the concert by wondering what kind of bartender would sell this obviously very drunk girl another beer, and where she might spill it next. At one point, Brandon grabbed me and pulled me back because she was in the floor leaning over her seat. Turns out she wasn't puking, but everytime she disappeared into the floor we backed up just in case. Guess she just kept dropping stuff that was vastly important and must be found at that very moment. The funniest thing she did was actually fall out of her seat while sitting in it. Even funnier was that the guy she was with didn't even notice and she had to climb back up on her own.
Modest Mouse finally took the stage...as much as I like their cds, in concert they were kind of boring and we ended up leaving two songs before the end of the concert. The screamers left right before us...after Brandon made one of the guys apologize to me for bumping into me for the umpteenth time without noticing. I was hoping we would all be there after the concert so I could inform them that they were possibly the most annoying people I had ever encountered.
But at least we beat the traffic getting out (we are officially old now).
5 comments:
I know what you mean! I took my husband to a show for his birthday several years ago... and we both left feeling so old!
Yeah, we're old. I don't do arena rock anymore for this reason exactly... Sigh...
I will have you know, however, that if they went backstage to see The Shins, The Shins are now mocking them, or they mocked them to their faces. I promise you.
We thought about swinging by your place to see if all the rockstars were there for an after-party with Watts ;)
Even in small venues, though, we've noticed that no one has any courtesy anymore. People talk through shows and are just generally annoying.
Somehow, if you say you feel "old," it makes me feel less old. But, I think it should make me feel older... Anyway, I can't remember the last big concert we attended.
Ah, reminds me of most of my concert experiences. I have never had all 3 (standers, screamers, drunk idiots) all in one place at a show, but I do tend to attract the drunk blond beer sloshing spazz DANCING girl. Then imagine all that..but also stinky been-camping-for-two-days people...never go to a festival.
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