Stacy's Mom Has It Goin' On ...
Ok, so beldar & I went to the Green Day concert last night. It was really great. It was so worth the Hell we went through to find the damn tickets. However, it was not the most perfect show or my favorite of the year but it was a fantastic show nonetheless.
We went out to eat prior to the show and since it started at 7:00 (rather than 8:00 as most shows do) we just had enough time to get there in plenty of time to get a decent seat (we bought the floor seats which were general admission). Since I had to change out of my work clothes, I went in first and beldar ran my clothes back to the car. I fought through the crowds and tried to find the entry and was then sent to a huge slow-moving line in order to get an armband so that I could get to my seat. Only the floor seating had to go through this and these were the most expensive seats in the place. I was amazed though, that we were allowed to have lids and straws for our soft drinks as most shows and sporting events have banned them. Funny how we can be trusted with these "dangerous" items but can't be trusted to sit on the floor without permission. beldar finally caught up to me and after we got our armbands we headed towards our seats.
First of all, when we bought our tickets only the floor and the second level seats were available for purchase. The diagram we purchased from showed chairs on the floor. However, when we got in the arena, there were no chairs and everyone was sitting on the floor. While I knew that once things got going we would all get up and stand, I did expect chairs beforehand. Oh well. We then sat there amoungst the kids who were almost all young enough to be ours and watched the ridonkulous messages people were texting onto the big screens. Once they rolled up the screens, everyone swarmed up to the stage and we went with them.
We decided that with the crowd such as it was, if we stood back a bit, we would actually be able to see the bands on stage so we stood back in what became the "parental corral" area and actually got to watch the show. The opening band, Jimmy Eat World was good but as most opening bands do, suffered the wrath of the sound system. They rarely have the levels equalized during the openers set and use them to fine tune the system for the headliner. However, they did a good job and put on a nice tight little set.
We than had a break before Green Day came out so beldar went to get us a soda. I sat down with the "cool mom" next to us (she brought her 14 year old son and his best friend to the show and she actually likes the band too so that makes her pretty kewl). They were selling little pink bunnies at the souvenir stand and shortly before the band came out, someone in a giant pink bunny costume came out and threw some of the stuffed bunnies in the audience. He then humped the stage and drank a beer (of course spitting some of it on the crowd which went wild) and then left the stage. Right before the show finally started, beldar finally made it back with the drink and (as I had suspected by the length of his absence) he had bought me a bunny. We caught him up with the bunny action he had missed and then the show began.
The first thing I noticed is how much Billie Joe looks like Elijah Wood. It was just strange. Otherwise, I must say, the man knows how to work and audience. I did wish he had done a little less applause-pandering and more playing of songs, but at least it was enjoyable. I was disappointed that they didn't play "She's A Rebel" but then again, they didn't play and of "what's her name"'s songs. The effects were very nice and even though we were about halfway back from the stage (about mid-court in basketball terms), we felt the heat from the fire every time it roared up. We started taking a drink every time he mentioned Indianapolis (you could tell he was working from an "insert name of city here" type of riff) and that kept us well hydrated throughout the show.
AT one point they hosed down the crowd and Billie Joe (I can't think of that name without thinking of "Petticoat Junction". God! I'm old) brought a kid up on stage to help (the kid was really good at it too). They later brought up three kids from the audience to play their instruments (and the kids weren't half bad) and they let the kid playing guitar keep the guitar.
The encore set was very nice and they doused the crowd with two confetti cannons. Now this was a particularly wonderful experience as I was directly under the main brunt of the backmost cannon and the sheer amount of confetti released was more significant than I've even seen. I stood there looking up and not only was it so think that I couldn't see beyond my outstretched arm, the confetti-fall lasted for at least two minutes at that level. It was like being swarmed by butterflies and probably one of the most visually beautiful moments of my life. After it stopped, the floor was covered pretty much ankle-deep in confetti. We had confetti-ball fights and I still have a bunch in my purse now.
Overall, it was a wonderful show and well worth seeing. The music was great. The message (yes, there was a message) was great and I really felt that after all of the political bullshit of the past few weeks that this was the perfect release to help us get on with our lives and start fixing that which is broken.
TTFN!
We went out to eat prior to the show and since it started at 7:00 (rather than 8:00 as most shows do) we just had enough time to get there in plenty of time to get a decent seat (we bought the floor seats which were general admission). Since I had to change out of my work clothes, I went in first and beldar ran my clothes back to the car. I fought through the crowds and tried to find the entry and was then sent to a huge slow-moving line in order to get an armband so that I could get to my seat. Only the floor seating had to go through this and these were the most expensive seats in the place. I was amazed though, that we were allowed to have lids and straws for our soft drinks as most shows and sporting events have banned them. Funny how we can be trusted with these "dangerous" items but can't be trusted to sit on the floor without permission. beldar finally caught up to me and after we got our armbands we headed towards our seats.
First of all, when we bought our tickets only the floor and the second level seats were available for purchase. The diagram we purchased from showed chairs on the floor. However, when we got in the arena, there were no chairs and everyone was sitting on the floor. While I knew that once things got going we would all get up and stand, I did expect chairs beforehand. Oh well. We then sat there amoungst the kids who were almost all young enough to be ours and watched the ridonkulous messages people were texting onto the big screens. Once they rolled up the screens, everyone swarmed up to the stage and we went with them.
We decided that with the crowd such as it was, if we stood back a bit, we would actually be able to see the bands on stage so we stood back in what became the "parental corral" area and actually got to watch the show. The opening band, Jimmy Eat World was good but as most opening bands do, suffered the wrath of the sound system. They rarely have the levels equalized during the openers set and use them to fine tune the system for the headliner. However, they did a good job and put on a nice tight little set.
We than had a break before Green Day came out so beldar went to get us a soda. I sat down with the "cool mom" next to us (she brought her 14 year old son and his best friend to the show and she actually likes the band too so that makes her pretty kewl). They were selling little pink bunnies at the souvenir stand and shortly before the band came out, someone in a giant pink bunny costume came out and threw some of the stuffed bunnies in the audience. He then humped the stage and drank a beer (of course spitting some of it on the crowd which went wild) and then left the stage. Right before the show finally started, beldar finally made it back with the drink and (as I had suspected by the length of his absence) he had bought me a bunny. We caught him up with the bunny action he had missed and then the show began.
The first thing I noticed is how much Billie Joe looks like Elijah Wood. It was just strange. Otherwise, I must say, the man knows how to work and audience. I did wish he had done a little less applause-pandering and more playing of songs, but at least it was enjoyable. I was disappointed that they didn't play "She's A Rebel" but then again, they didn't play and of "what's her name"'s songs. The effects were very nice and even though we were about halfway back from the stage (about mid-court in basketball terms), we felt the heat from the fire every time it roared up. We started taking a drink every time he mentioned Indianapolis (you could tell he was working from an "insert name of city here" type of riff) and that kept us well hydrated throughout the show.
AT one point they hosed down the crowd and Billie Joe (I can't think of that name without thinking of "Petticoat Junction". God! I'm old) brought a kid up on stage to help (the kid was really good at it too). They later brought up three kids from the audience to play their instruments (and the kids weren't half bad) and they let the kid playing guitar keep the guitar.
The encore set was very nice and they doused the crowd with two confetti cannons. Now this was a particularly wonderful experience as I was directly under the main brunt of the backmost cannon and the sheer amount of confetti released was more significant than I've even seen. I stood there looking up and not only was it so think that I couldn't see beyond my outstretched arm, the confetti-fall lasted for at least two minutes at that level. It was like being swarmed by butterflies and probably one of the most visually beautiful moments of my life. After it stopped, the floor was covered pretty much ankle-deep in confetti. We had confetti-ball fights and I still have a bunch in my purse now.
Overall, it was a wonderful show and well worth seeing. The music was great. The message (yes, there was a message) was great and I really felt that after all of the political bullshit of the past few weeks that this was the perfect release to help us get on with our lives and start fixing that which is broken.
TTFN!