Bill and I decided that we want to go to the concert way back in February. Bill decided that he wanted to go, so I bought tickets online for both of us. About a week later, he called back and asked when the concert was again. I told him April 1st, which was a Friday night. He called me back and broke the news to me that he couldn't make it on that night because he had to work. I was pretty pissed. Here I had shelled out the money for the concert and he couldn't even go! In vain, I asked some people at work if they wanted to go, but I had no luck convincing people to go with me. It was then that I asked Joe if he wanted to go. He didn't, but one of his sons might. Sure enough, Derek, the older one, said that he'd like to go. So it was set... until I realized that the concert wasn't on April 1st, but rather May 15th. I noticed it while looking up more ticket information. I think I had ingrained April 1st in my head because that was the day John Mellencamp was to play Omaha and I had asked Laura if she was interested since she likes John Mellencamp.
I then assumed that the original plan was on, but Joe assumed otherwise. He didn't like my switching of plans one bit and was even less enthusiastic about my plan to buy Derek a ticket and then have him sit by himself on the other side of the Qwest center. I mean, what's the big deal?! So we leave a minor to sit by himself amongst strangers. Bill decided to opt out since he didn't want to cause trouble, but Derek decided that he really didn't want to go, so we were back on.
We finally made it to the concert. Bill and I found our baby sitters and we were off. We decided to meet at Nebraska Furniture Mart because he had to pay a bill. This was a good choice because it gave me something to do while Bill went to the bathroom, all three times to be exact. He claimed that he had stomach troubles since flying back from California, but this seems to be par for the course for him. He's always going to the can!
We drove to Walgreens and bought Pepto Bismal for him. We then headed to King Kong burger. We ate and he hit the bathroom again. At the Qwest center alone, he hit the bathroom twice before the show, at least three times during and once before leaving. I'm sure he'll dispute this since he claims I stretch the truth, but it's true. Dude likes going to the bathroom... a lot...
Interesting thing about the concert coming in. The security guards confiscated every single studded wristband or studded leather belt, which I found odd since I'm sure there are plenty of other things one could use as a weapon if needed, my shoes for instance. Also, on the tickets, it only said no audio or video devices. If they didn't want punk rock kids to wear studded apparel, they should have put on the tickets, "No studded belts, chains, wrist bands or any other studded atire. We at the Qwest Center are very paranoid." They were so paranoid that when buying a gatorade, they emptied the bottle into a cup for me and wouldn't let me keep the bottle. They did that for the bottled water and cans of beer the dispensed. Weird.
It was a pretty mixed concert all the way around. Half of the crowd were the new teeny boppers that were at their first concert (or so they claimed when half of the crowd cheered when asked by opener My Chemical Romance's lead singer to cheer if they were at their first concert ever). The other half, of course, was a mixed bag of people in their 20s and 30s.
My Chemical Romance did their best to be rousing, but the horrible Quest Center audio dynamics totally drowned out the vocals to an echo-like mess.
Anyway, Green Day hit the stage with command and did some rousing versions of the first several songs of American Idiot (skipping Blvd. of Broken Dreams for the encore) and stopping at the song where St. Jimmy arrives.
This is where it went down hill. They started messing around with way too many audience participation songs with lots of commands for people to yell "Hey!" and "Ho!" at the beginnings, middle and end. I didn't think it was possible to stretch 3 songs that were about 3 minutes apiece into 30 minutes, but I was wrong as "Hitchin' a Ride" seemed to take forever, likewise for "King for a Day". They did a rousing version of the Animal House version of "Shout" but of course extended that. Then came an audience pariticipation song where they pulled 3 kids from the crowd to play drums, bass and guitar. They did pull it off, but it took 10 minutes to get it going.
Songs of note were pretty good versions of "Longview", "She" and "Minority"
The general lack of more songs from American Idiot was disappointing and the audience participation attempts got really old. As I muttered to my brother, "Just sing some f***ing songs already!"
I admit they were really good, but the song participation stuff just got really annoying, but then again, I wasn't feeling the hotest since when I got home I found that I had a 100 degree temperature. Also, being that I'm getting old, my developing hernia near my groinal area started to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch during the concert. It's been hurting a lot lately whenever I do something like mow the lawn, rake, or use a shovel, which is quite often lately, so it gets aggravated easily. I felt like shouting to the kids, "Enjoy your health while you can! This will be you someday!" I don't think I'd have gotten any sympathy.
During the concert, it was amusing to see the younger crowd try to show how wild they were. We had three teenage girls in front of us and they took turns thrashing their hair this way and that, slapping hands and filming 30 second clips onto their phones and emailing them away. I found that last part kind of sad and amusing considering that we were near the back of the arena, which means that the sound would suck and it would like ants were on stage. I can see her bragging to her friend, "Check it out! There's Billy Joe! Dude totally looks hot if you could actually see what that black spec on stage is, but I swear it's him!"
Not that the older crowd was any less annoying. The beer drinkers were very uptight and irate about the lack of speed at the service counters. One long-haired guy yelled to a helper behind the counter to open another register. When the guy said that he couldn't, the guy laughed and then yelled, "F*** you! You're useless! Get out of here!" That'll get you good service. Just piss off the staff why don't you? When I was in that position at my book buying gig, all I had to do was threaten to send them to the back of the line if they didn't stop complaining about the prices I was giving them and that shut them up pretty damned quick.
Leaving the show, we encountered a lot of groups of girls that were being escorted by a lone adult that was either 5 yards behind them or 10 yards ahead of them. I'm sure that'll be me someday, but Julia's going to hate my ass whenever I take her to these concerts. I can't decide if I want to wear the Bikini Inspector hat or just tag along and gab until she gets sick of it and tells me how lame I am. Her friends will probably tell her that I'm a cool Dad that at least likes modern music, but she'll say, "My Dad is such a jerk!"
No comments:
Post a Comment