And let me tell you, the people watching last night was on a completely different plane than the two concerts we saw earlier this year! The people coming to see George were a little different...okay a lot different...than those that went to go see Marc Cohn and Mary Chapin Carpenter and a lot different than the group we had been with to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. One of the first things we noticed was that there were a lot fewer kids there. The second thing we noticed was the line to the beer and wine tent was much longer! Then of course we got to watch the effect of those longer lines! There was the friendly drunk who would pop his teeth in and out of his head and who had "made friends" with a gentlemen and his girlfriend earlier in the evening and kept finding them no matter how sneaky they tried to be. It got so the girlfriend looked a little worried everytime she walked by the beer tent...never knew when he was going to pop out at her!
There was the couple next to us that came to the concert already a little toasty, added a bottle of wine and few beers to that as well as what ever it was in her dropper bottle in her purse. When Brent noticed the Poison tattoo on her arm and realized she must be about our age we both had a moment of thanks for living a relatively clean life. She looked at least 15 years older than us. There was security wandering around with their measuring sticks. You can bring sand chairs but they can only be 30 inches high. They are big on not obstructing the view of the people behind you. Two gentlemen sitting to our left had to take their too high chairs back to the high chair area.
Then The Stone Foxes from San Francisco took the stage. I know their name because they announced it before every song they did. Ah, the life of an opening act, they weren't bad at all but the biggest applause they got was when they left the stage and announced that George would be out soon. You always sort of wonder if they are thrilled just to be on the road playing or if it gets to be too discouraging to know you aren't who anyone is there to see. But like I said, they weren't bad. Young from what I could see so just starting out.
Then the main event! Yay! George Thorogood and the Destroyers took the stage....or at least I think they took the stage. I cannot guarantee they took the stage as this was now my view...
All of the fuss over chair backs that were too high and they let people stand in the walkway so the entire back half of the lawn where we were had no site-line to the stage. When I stood up I could see the very tops of the band's heads and parts of the video screens. Being taller than me when C stood up he could see most of everything. But of course if we were standing then the people up above us on the hill who did still have a partial view of the stage would have no view at all. So it was either sit and see nothing or stand and block someone else. Very very frustrating.
GT sounded good, but not a lot different than he does on CD so without the connection of being able to watch him the energy you normally get from a live show just wasn't there. Between not being able to see, Brent having to work early this morning and deciding that leaving at the same time as a bunch of our drunkest friends wasn't really a great idea we ended up leaving during the second act, which we never do. I would imagine he probably played for another 20 minutes that we missed, but we made it home safely and due to a funny incident on the max (I'll write about it later) much of the frustration drained away. As we were leaving I told Brent I would really like to SEE GT in concert someday.
Which reminded me of another band I would love to see in concert some day.
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes played in Portland a few years ago. I've been a MFGG for a long time and was really excited about the show. It was St. Patrick's day and I went to the concert with a few girls from work. The four of us went out for drinks before the show and took a cab to the venue. One of the four of us had a few more drinks pre-function than the rest of us, then had a few more drinks at the venue, then had a few more just to top those off...then it got bad. She disappeared to the bathroom about 10 minutes in to the show and didn't come back... I got worried and went looking for her...and spent the rest of the evening holding her hair back while she vomited in to the sink.
Now, I am a sympathy vomiter so generally I am not the one to hang out with someone who is sick. I also was not close to the woman who was sick. And by not close I would say, she hated me and I wasn't a huge fan of hers. But (remember the whole blog series on this time period) I couldn't let who she was change who I was. And I am not the sort of person who can leave someone while they are sick and not try to help out. That and the fact that she liked to play "true confessions" while she was drunk and kept trying to confess to wrongdoings that she needed to not say a word about. So every time she would start to cry and say..."If you guys only knew what I did..." I would hush her and tell her she just needed to be quiet.
How did I know she needed to be quiet? Because I knew what she wanted to confess. The email issue I told you all about a long time ago where emails would get caught in the Spam filter. I knew way too much about her from those added to giving her a ride home the week before from a work function where she had...surprise surprise...had too much to drink and she had played "true confessions" that night as well. After hearing her start on the first night I knew where she was going and told her point blank, "You need to keep your mouth shut and not say another word." She did that night but was ready to open up again a few days later. Some people just shouldn't drink.
So anyway, the three of us who weren't drunk off our asses still got to spend a majority of the concert tending to someone who was. I stayed with her the whole time while my two friends offered to sit with her and let me out to see the concert. Not being willing to risk her talking about things that would damage her reputation and muck things up at work I would decline. At one stretch she was laying on the bathroom counter, I was holding her hair, Jenny was patting her forehead with a damp cloth and Marie was rubbing her back...the door opened and you could hear the opening blasts of "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and I turned to my two friends and said..."It sure would be fun to see them in concert someday." It became a joke among the three of us for a long long time.
So now I've added another band to that list...I wonder if they would ever do a concert together? And if I could get good seats? And make sure the people I went with stayed sober....
Maybe I should just stick to listening to them on my iPod...
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