Ok, now that that is out of the way...
Last month, I got an email asking me if I wanted to buy tickets for MixFest 2007. For those of you not in the know when it comes to San Antonio, we have a bis festival every year called Fiesta!
During this celebration, the local radio station does one of it's annual coinciding concerts. I like these concerts because they usually are headlined by bands that haven't quite made it huge yet so they are held somewhere relatively small, like Sunset Station. I have seen Hinder, Default, Ryan Cabrera, Gavin DeGraw & Switchfoot all at concerts put on by Mix 96.1.
So you can imagine my surprise (if you are a fan) when I got my email for MixFest and the headlining band was Blue October. I LOVE Blue October! Just ask The Cake Lady's husband, it's all we listened to like the first two months we carpooled together.
I forwarded the email to Jiffinner who immediately responded with: "Oh, my god. We totally have to go!" Yes, yes we do.
So, tickets were purchased and plans were made and all was well in the world.
Last week, as I was insuring that I would have someone to watch my children while I was gone, Amanda asked me where I was going. I told her and she said she wanted to come too because she loves Blue October. (Is she my kid or is she my kid?)
I was hemming and hawing when she mentions to me, ever so casually, that I was the one who implemented the No Concerts Until You Are In The Double Digits rule. I had indeed. So, I told her if the concert hadn't sold out that she could come and buy her ticket at the door. (I have to put in that the kid pulled two teeth in the last week so she would have enough money!)
Friday rolls around and the box office says they still have tickets so Amanda and I load up and head over to pick up Jiffinner, Jiffinner's brother Bubba & Bubba's new (or at least new to me) boyfriend The Amazing Adorable Boy (TAAB for short). Why is he TAAB? Because not even five minutes into the drive, when Jiffinner was questioning my taste in music as The Squirrel Nut Zippers belted out Blue Angel, TAAB not only knew who they were but also backed me up that they are quite rad.
So, we are all off to downtown SA.
I managed to get us there and parked with only one near death experience which will be forever known as The Second Time I Went The Wrong Way On A One-Way Road. Well, kind of. Technically it wasn't a one-way road. It was more of a two way road separated by one of those cement island thingies and I went on the wrong side of the thingie and THANK GOD no one was coming the other direction before all of my very concerned passengers managed to convince me that maybe I should JUMP THE FUCKING CURB ALREADY AND GET ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD BEFORE WE ALL DIE! Which I did.
We parked and thus began the First Concert Experience for my eldest daughter.
I was really freaking out that we wouldn't get to the box office before they sold out of tickets and Amanda and I would listen to the whole thing from the sidewalk outside so when a scalper walked over to us and asked if we needed tickets, I went against what is normally my better judgment and asked her how much. Twenty bucks. That's five bucks less than they are at the box office... And she was promising me that they were real tickets (a promise that is about as good as a beer fart) so we handed her a twenty and hoped like hell Amanda wouldn't get arrested. Because we had indeed told her that she would take the fall :) She wasn't sweating it though. Plus, ticket looked real enough.
Tickets in hand, we went in and started to poke around. Amanda wanted to walk everywhere and look at everything so after I grabbed her a Sprite and me a beer, we started to wander around. A bunch of the Mix 96.1 people were holding signs that said "Free Hugs". I told Amanda that I was pretty sure that you got something if you hugged the right person and after she ate the biggest waffle I've ever seen, I was proved right. After Augustana finished their set, they announced that one of the Mix team had backstage passes for meeting the band. Amanda and I set out to find them. Amanda spots the chic right as she is picking out a very tall blond dude who has on a HATE ME shirt. As we are waiting to ask for backstage passes too, the tall dude reaches over and puts his hand on Amanda's shoulder and asks if he can bring her. The Mix chic, I think her name was Vanessa, looks at Amanda and I and says ok.
Holy shit.
We are carted off to the VIP area and made to wait for about ten minutes before being taken backstage. Right about then it occurs to me that I neither have a writing utensil of any kind nor a camera. Of all the fucking times to forget my camera. But the big blond dude, who's name was TJ, took pity on us and gave us one of his many Sharpies and we decided to have Amanda's shirt signed. A few minutes later, they announced that there would be no autographs - only pictures. It was starting to look like a bust since I hadn't brought a camera, but then they said that they would be taking pics of everyone and posting them on the Mix website. And they also announced that we would be meeting The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and not Blue October, which I was a little bummed out about but oh well.
As we get closer to it being our turn, the guys from the band are all smiling and waving at Amanda (who was the only "kid" to make it backstage) and she is totally bouncing around all excited. So when she walks over with her Sharpie and her smile, they asked her if they could sign her shirt!
They were really nice to her, giving her hugs and asking her how she was doing. She told them it was her first concert and they all thanked her for coming to their show. I was really starting to dig them until one dude reached over and patted me on the shoulder and told me, "thank you for bringing her out."
Uhm - pardon me? What am I, like fifty? Made me feel very much like an out of touch mom. Just a nice reminder that I am not a cool rocker chic anymore, but whatever.
And then we got our picture taken with them.
When they finally took the stage, Amanda was starting to fade. It was nine something and she was pretty ready for bed. They played until about ten thirty and then we had to wait until around eleven for Blue October to get set up. But she stuck it out and Blue October put on an amazing show.
All and all, I think it was a pretty bitching first concert experience for her.
Labels: Amanda, Being Mommy, music, my crazy life, un-fucking-believable
