Sitting At Rush!?!?
Okay, let me begin by saying that I am not an intolerant woman. I truly do not believe that things are my way or the highway. Now, that being said, do I enjoy my way more? Naturally. Will I sometimes try to convince you that my way is better? Guilty. Will I roll my eyes and make sarcastic comments to the side? Probably. However, in most situations I would never dream of interfering with your God-given right to be an idiot. I may point and laugh, but try to stop you? Perish the thought.
I don’t want to dedicate too much time to this but I feel something has to be said. In the month of June I was fortunate enough to go see the band Rush twice. Once in Las Vegas on June 24th with my adorable better half, Eric, and once in Concord on the 26th with some very dear friends. Las Vegas was, well, in a word, Vegas. People were having a great time, singing along, dancing, whooping and hollering. You know, living the good life.
Which is NOT to say that people in Concord were not doing any of those same things. Concord was just as much fun as Vegas. (Okay, minus the slot machines, free drinks, insane people watching opportunities and, of course, my hot husband). However, a funny thing happened at the Concord concert.
The lights went up and crowd rose to its collective feet. We watched and laughed at Rush’s hilarious intro piece on the huge screens. (You can see YouTube for Rush’s Python-esque skits. There were a few throughout the concert.) Then the band began the first song and the crowd roared. Thousands of people dancing, singing, all were thoroughly enjoying themselves. And that’s when it happened, the two large-ish gentlemen in front of my friend Michelle and I sat down.
Please bear in mind, I do not mind if people in front of me sit down at shows. I am, hmm, I believe the term is Vertically Challenged. In the vernacular, let’s say, “short”. I am short and so if the people in front of me sit down, why, that’s like Christmas came early. Thank you very much, large-ish gentlemen.
However, these two large-ish gentlemen then proceeded to spend the majority of the concert yelling obscenities at the people in front of them for doing what any concert-goer does, standing up. This was quite distracting to me, Michelle and Jim as we tried to focus on the actual music. (There was very little musicality in these men’s swearing regime. No sense of lyricism, I suppose.) Not to mention distressing to the adorable twelve-year-old girl dancing with her parents in the seats to my left. (She was, point of fact, actually standing on her chair and have a grand twelve-year-old time. She also knew all the words to every song. Excellent.)
Really? You and your puffy friend are the only people sitting in our entire section. You are amongst perhaps a dozen or so in the whole 12,500 assigned seating portion of the Pavilion (and yes, I’m including those in wheelchairs as sitting, though I am sure they would have preferred to stand). However, you are out of your mind in anger over those in front of you for having the effrontery to dare to dance during a concert. At one point one of the “gentlemen” actually went so far as to flick one of his nachos at another concert attendee. Really, dude?
I am sure that Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum in front of me are the same people who get annoyed when children color the grass purple or the horse pink (hate to think what would happen if they colored out of the lines). These guys likely frown when birds sing in the morning (so disruptive) and gripe at football games when the crowd starts doing The Wave (almost like exercise, ugh). Don’t even get me started on their likely reactions to puppies (saliva factor) or loud birthday singing (isn’t a card enough) or running through the Alps singing “the hills are alive…” (okay, maybe they have a point on that last one). Uh, guys? You’re like, at Rush.
It did occur to me that perhaps these two had a medical condition, you know, something that would necessitate the whole sitting down extravaganza. Just when I had decided that they were more deserving of my pity than my angst, they popped up dancing and cheering… for one song. That song, naturally, is probably the one most played by radio stations, even over played, “Tom Sawyer”. Mind you, it’s a classic. It’s a wonderful song, but if it is the ONLY Rush song that you get excited for then that doesn’t do a whole lot for your street cred. Just saying.
There’s no real moral to my vent and no clever ending wrapping it up in a bright life lesson bow. However, I do want to go on record and warn everyone, if you see me at a hard rock concert I will be standing up. I will be standing up and dancing or banging my head or something because that is proper concert etiquette. Yes, all five feet of me. That’s just how I roll, baby. You can sit down. I have no problem with you sitting down. Please though, no getting nasty with everyone else for doing exactly what they are supposed to do at a show.
Really? You expect people to sit… for Rush?!?
