Oh, my achin' back
First of all, thank you's to everyone who's commented, or lent their sympathies, as to our loss. We're going to be going through it for a while; I just have the feeling that, even given that we all had the chance to say goodbye, and he obviously picked the circumstances of his leaving, there'll be times when we will really miss him that'll crop up for days to come. (As I wrote this, Kid-1 was crying a bit, saying that she expected him to come walking up while she was doing some last-minute homework...)
For tonight, we had an unfortunate confluence of events: we had tickets to Merriweather for Kid-1's birthday. The birthday itself is actually next week (thank God), but this show was announced way, way back in January for this date, and we decided it would make a great birthday gift, since it's close, and especially since K-1 is a huge, huge fan of two of the bands on the bill. (Their songs populate her iPod Shuffle to an amazing percentage, and she nearly hyperventilated with joy at my suggestion that we should get her a tour t-shirt since, well, you can't go to the show and not get the t-shirt.)
Now the question is, here is my girl, who has just gone through an extremely emotional ordeal this morning that we kept her home from school in order to deal with...there were still tears even later in the afternoon (of course). Do we keep her away, eat the cost of the tickets, and let her grieve?
We decided to go. This might have been exactly what she needed, and it would have gotten her out of the house for a while. (Kid-2 stayed at home when she first found out about Grendel's condition; Kid-1 stayed home today. They grieve, and deal and cope, in very different ways; it's difficult keeping track or allowing them their own styles sometimes.)
As it turns out, I think it was the right decision. Kid-1 had a very, very fun, cathartic, let-it-all-out time, out on the lawn at Merriweather for her first rock concert, among vast hordes of screaming teenyboppers. I would hope that she can later remember this day as having some positives to it. She had just gone through a situation that many adults would not have been mature and balanced enough to endure and come through in exactly the right way, with love and caring and tenderness. She needed a chance to be a kid.
The concert was a five-band bill featuring the latest in teenybopper bands. October Fall, a new band, was the opener; we were waiting in line for a t-shirt while they did their set, but they sounded okay. From First to Last followed, and provided the only clinker of the evening. They have energy, but can't really play, and are too derivative...and the lead singer desperately needs a more diverse vocabulary (and to learn that insulting the audience isn't likely to gain you more fans). Hawthorne Heights was next. They're obviously tabbed by the record companies as the next Fall Out Boy or Blink 182, as their sound is very similar and they occasionally segue into the hardcore bits, but can play their instruments and have something of a stage presence. I was pleasantly surprised. Then came the heavy hitters of the bunch: The All-American Rejects took the stage and just did some more straight-ahead rock 'n' roll, including a rock ballad ("It Ends Tonight"), which they acknowledged as a bit of a throwback. (Lesson #1 learned: in the old days, we held up lighters and waved them over our heads; nowadays, it's cel phones.*) They were a lot of no-frills fun. Last but not least, the headliners, Fall Out Boy, who seemed to be rather comfortable, despite their protestations, with being the main guys. They survive a lot on their looks and their stage show - you don't have to be able to play when you can just make the girlies scream - but they can play, are fairly decent songwriters, and try not to take themselves too seriously. They escaped the Chicago hardcore scene because according to them, they needed to do something else to break the monotony, which I can understand...but I do wonder how much the lure of $$$ factored in their decision to go with a more poppy sound.
Anyway, we were on the lawn, which meant that Kid-1 (who is now the same height as efbq) couldn't see a thing...so whenever a song would come on that she desperately wanted to see performed (most of them, especially for FOB), I would pick her up and put her on my shoulders, à la the many SYT's who get hoisted up onto their athlete-boyfriend's aircraft-carrier-deck-sized shoulders at concerts since the days when rocks were soft. Thing is, I'm not a linebacker by any stretch, and there literally must have been a dozen times that I picked her up. I got a good workout, but I will be completely sore tomorrow.
* Lesson #2, btw, is teener girls nowadays are skinny. There was some very nice eye candy - I didn't look, or at least linger; that would've been unspeakably crass - but much of it, besides being loli, could've blown down the street in a stiff wind.
For tonight, we had an unfortunate confluence of events: we had tickets to Merriweather for Kid-1's birthday. The birthday itself is actually next week (thank God), but this show was announced way, way back in January for this date, and we decided it would make a great birthday gift, since it's close, and especially since K-1 is a huge, huge fan of two of the bands on the bill. (Their songs populate her iPod Shuffle to an amazing percentage, and she nearly hyperventilated with joy at my suggestion that we should get her a tour t-shirt since, well, you can't go to the show and not get the t-shirt.)
Now the question is, here is my girl, who has just gone through an extremely emotional ordeal this morning that we kept her home from school in order to deal with...there were still tears even later in the afternoon (of course). Do we keep her away, eat the cost of the tickets, and let her grieve?
We decided to go. This might have been exactly what she needed, and it would have gotten her out of the house for a while. (Kid-2 stayed at home when she first found out about Grendel's condition; Kid-1 stayed home today. They grieve, and deal and cope, in very different ways; it's difficult keeping track or allowing them their own styles sometimes.)
As it turns out, I think it was the right decision. Kid-1 had a very, very fun, cathartic, let-it-all-out time, out on the lawn at Merriweather for her first rock concert, among vast hordes of screaming teenyboppers. I would hope that she can later remember this day as having some positives to it. She had just gone through a situation that many adults would not have been mature and balanced enough to endure and come through in exactly the right way, with love and caring and tenderness. She needed a chance to be a kid.
The concert was a five-band bill featuring the latest in teenybopper bands. October Fall, a new band, was the opener; we were waiting in line for a t-shirt while they did their set, but they sounded okay. From First to Last followed, and provided the only clinker of the evening. They have energy, but can't really play, and are too derivative...and the lead singer desperately needs a more diverse vocabulary (and to learn that insulting the audience isn't likely to gain you more fans). Hawthorne Heights was next. They're obviously tabbed by the record companies as the next Fall Out Boy or Blink 182, as their sound is very similar and they occasionally segue into the hardcore bits, but can play their instruments and have something of a stage presence. I was pleasantly surprised. Then came the heavy hitters of the bunch: The All-American Rejects took the stage and just did some more straight-ahead rock 'n' roll, including a rock ballad ("It Ends Tonight"), which they acknowledged as a bit of a throwback. (Lesson #1 learned: in the old days, we held up lighters and waved them over our heads; nowadays, it's cel phones.*) They were a lot of no-frills fun. Last but not least, the headliners, Fall Out Boy, who seemed to be rather comfortable, despite their protestations, with being the main guys. They survive a lot on their looks and their stage show - you don't have to be able to play when you can just make the girlies scream - but they can play, are fairly decent songwriters, and try not to take themselves too seriously. They escaped the Chicago hardcore scene because according to them, they needed to do something else to break the monotony, which I can understand...but I do wonder how much the lure of $$$ factored in their decision to go with a more poppy sound.
Anyway, we were on the lawn, which meant that Kid-1 (who is now the same height as efbq) couldn't see a thing...so whenever a song would come on that she desperately wanted to see performed (most of them, especially for FOB), I would pick her up and put her on my shoulders, à la the many SYT's who get hoisted up onto their athlete-boyfriend's aircraft-carrier-deck-sized shoulders at concerts since the days when rocks were soft. Thing is, I'm not a linebacker by any stretch, and there literally must have been a dozen times that I picked her up. I got a good workout, but I will be completely sore tomorrow.
* Lesson #2, btw, is teener girls nowadays are skinny. There was some very nice eye candy - I didn't look, or at least linger; that would've been unspeakably crass - but much of it, besides being loli, could've blown down the street in a stiff wind.