If You Didn't Go to a Mumford and Sons Concert, Was It Even Summer?

Spoiler alert: no. 

I think that loving music must be at least partially genetic, because both my younger kid and I LOVE music. LOVE it, which I used to think was the default setting for all of humanity, until I met my partner, who has never once purposefully listened to a song for pleasure. And our older kid is the same. When she was little I thought that she did love music, because she was all about They Might Be Giants and Victor Johnson, but what she was actually doing was listening over and over again to the They Might Be Giants album Here Comes Science, which is all about science stuff, and the Victor Johnson album Multiplication and Skip Counting Songs, which is all about math.  

But to be fair, if you've ever listened to that Victor Johnson album, you'll understand that all the songs on it are indeed bangers!

Oh, and this obscure 2002 SteveSongs album. We still put this on occasionally and we all STILL know all the words!

Anyway, I think that happy willingness to engage in a non-preferred activity must also be genetic, because both the younger kid and I pout our heads off if we're not doing exactly what we want literally every second of every day, but my partner and older kid are happily willing, even if they don't give a flip about the music, to simply pal along with me and the younger kid to all the sweaty, rainy, uncomfortable outdoor concerts that, in my eyes, define summer:

Thanks to getting there super early and standing in line forever, we got lawn seats right at the front for this Mumford and Sons concert. We spread our butts out as much as possible to hold our ground, but people didn't really cram in like they should, so after the opening act, when I saw a couple meandering down the aisle in front of the lawn section and peering into the crowd, I was all, "Those two are about to bogart themselves a spot. Do NOT let them push you back!"

Indeed, the couple pointed at us and then made a beeline over, and ended up squeezing themselves into the six square inches between our blanket and the blanket behind us. It's definitely one way to avoid having to get to the concert early! Anyway, we're pretty mean and judgmental when you can't hear us, so we have discussed this couple numerous times since then, and there's always something new and rude for us to chew over. So I guess they did in the end pay the mandatory emotional fee for sitting next to us! The family on our left put the younger kid with them under their own giant umbrella when it began to bucket down rain, and the couple on our right gave the older kid their spare pair of Loops because she was in such obvious discomfort by the third song of the opening act. So see, getting roasted in absentia for two full months is practically nothing!

OMG that rain. In all my outdoor concertgoing life, only once has it ever not rained on me! Last year, when we got evacuated to a storm shelter over a mile away on foot, was absolutely the worst, and at least this time we didn't have to leave the venue, but omg did it absolutely pour. 

Whatever. I will sit on a blanket hunched over like a dog suffering through any amount of rain, as long as afterwards, Mumford and Sons plays for me!

My partner took all the photos and videos so I could enjoy the concert, and he happened to be filming during "Ditmas" when Marcus Mumford left the stage, ran through the audience right next to us, and I lost my mind with happiness:

I love it when musicians make an effort to give those of us with the plebeian tickets something special, too, and this was honestly one of the coolest concert moments I've ever experienced. Like, I don't think he even had a path set out ahead of time, or a plan--he was dodging picnic blankets and slipping in the mud and I don't know how his lighting and security guys kept up with him. It was the BEST.

After the concert, a kind stranger saw me struggling to take a family selfie and offered to take it for me. I LOVE how it turned out, even though you can't see us at all, lol:

Because if you don't take a terrible family photo while you're all soaked and bedraggled from sitting outside during a rainstorm, muddy from standing in a wet field for four hours, and anticipating the midnight fast food stop in your immediate future, was it even summer?

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We Left the Dog and Her Kid in the Hotel and Went to a Concert

Mother Mother was the first post-pandemic concert that I braved back in 2022. Cavetown was my kid's favorite when she was thirteen, and then she got me into him, too. So obviously, when the two bands announced that they were going on tour together this year, we had to go!

One thing that I feel like I have learned from the past couple of years of concerts is that I am too old and creaky to be battling these tweenagers and twenty-babies for standing space. I'm also short, and old enough that I get mad when I can't see. So for the very first time, I did something that I would probably have sneered the sneer of the poverty-stricken and able-bodied at when I, myself, was a twenty-baby:

Those are genuine VIP/Early Access armbands right there! We were front of the line along with all the other middle-aged moms and dads and their own lucky tweenagers and twenty-babies, all checked in and security screened and lined up ready to get our access to the pit a full 30 minutes before the billion other ticketholders... and then we were told that a storm was coming through and they made us all evacuate.

Let me just say that although the actual employees who worked at our venue were awesome, Live Nation's inclement weather plans suuuuuuck. They had a much more famous fumble that same night, when a sold-out Noah Kahan concert got cancelled after the crowd was already there, and nobody knew what was going on and nobody knew how to evacuate and nobody had cell service and everyone was confused. In our case, the entire crowd of Early Access ticketholders, and an ever-increasing crowd of regular ticketholders, walked behind a single employee who guided us A FULL MILE in the hot, muggy weather via various sidewalks and footpaths to a parking garage near Soldier's Field, where we all just sort of dispersed ourselves inside and milled about:

All those people facing left are mobbing an honest-to-god Snapple machine just outside the frame. I swear that I had not so much as seen a Snapple in twenty years until that afternoon, when I saw about a hundred come out of that machine. Whoever owns that Snapple machine had a GREAT day!

Here's me, looking like I could really use a Snapple:

We hung out in the parking garage for nearly an hour, during which time it never rained, and then we all hiked in a big mob the mile back to the Huntington Bank Pavilion, where absolute chaos was in progress. There were multiple lines, but it was unclear who had organized said lines or how they were structured or where they went. The VIP line was long gone. Mostly there was just a big crowd of people milling toward the one entrance, with everyone being confused and having different ideas about what everyone else was meant to be doing. 

Matt and the kid and I sort of milled purposelessly along with everyone else, and then someone said that someone else said that they were letting people with VIP wristbands through another entrance, so we went over there and milled about, and indeed, every now and then an employee would call for VIPs, and we'd all hold up our wristbands and mill our way to the front, and she'd let us through a few at a time back through the security line and back into the venue.

Thoughts and prayers for the VIP Early Access ticketholders who hadn't checked in and gotten their wristband by the time we were evacuated, and also for the regular ticketholders, because I saw on reddit later that many of them were still in line to get in long after the concert had started!

But silver lining: what with all the chaos and milling about and what-have-you, the three of us somehow managed to get spots right at the barrier in front of the stage. The only person I had to try to see over was this cameraman!

My personal rule for being right in front of the stage is that if you're there, you do the work. And so we manfully did our part as the opening act's biggest fans, as well:

Fortunately, it wasn't a challenge to be the biggest fans of Meet Me @ the Altar, because they were so good!

Here's a look back at the crowd between sets, when reddit tells me that about half the ticketholders were still waiting in line outside:

I'm SO glad I'm not standing in the back, craning my neck and sharing sweat with strangers on all sides. Such is the burden, and the beauty, of old age.

And here's what we were all waiting for!

I wanted to enjoy my favorite songs, but I also wanted to get some videos of my favorite songs, but I also wanted to sing along to my favorite songs but I learned at the last Cavetown concert that singing along while I video is suuuuch a bad idea because shockingly, I am SUCH a bad singer! I am an enthusiastic singer, but I am apparently reliably flat! So my strategy was to get at least a verse or a chorus of my favorite songs on video, then enjoy the rest.

I mostly refrained from singing while I was videoing, but I did not refrain from dancing, and I do not regret this. Enjoy the camera shake!

The kid and I spent the time between sets mostly gossiping, peoplewatching, and discussing how her older sister would have HAAAAATED being there with us. 

My partner was as miserable as she would have been, but he's a team player and is generally happy to hang out with us and hold our bags and hit the merch tent with screenshots of what we want, etc. He's the perfect concert partner!

The next week I would be in my doctor's office trying to get an audiologist referral, and when she asked me if I'd been subject to any especially loud noises recently, I would say no, but then when I got home I'd remember this moment and have to mark the "You accidentally lie about something" square off my Doctor Visit BINGO card. To be fair, my hearing has been deteriorating for a couple of years now, but also... um, as a matter of fact, I HAVE been subject to some especially loud noises lately, and I couldn't have been more excited to have been so!

I'm more of the Mother Mother fan and the kid is more of the Cavetown fan, but I still couldn't help sneaking peeks at her during the Mother Mother set so I could watch her having fun. It's objectively SOOOOO creepy to stare at people's faces, but I am fully leaning into my Soon-to-be Empty Nester Midlife Crisis Mindset, and I am soaking in that baby's face!

Also, can I just be extra middle-aged here and say that I love that she doesn't have her phone in front of her face? She's being much more Present in the Moment than I am, since I'm the one snapping blurry little pics and taking shaky little videos!

I was SO excited about this double headliner, and I definitely loved it, but just between us, I preferred the 2022 concert when Mother Mother was the sole headliner and played a super long set that included every single one of my favorite songs. Here, their set was still over an hour, but they omitted a couple of songs I love and condensed my absolute favorite song into kind of a medley. Here's a snippet of me cherishing the couple of verses we got to hear:

But here's the proper whole song so you can cherish it, too:

Nevertheless, we did get through a goodly number of my favorite songs:

Just picture me incandescent with joy!

Almost as soon as the concert had finished, the storm that we'd evacuated for earlier finally hit, and it absolutely dumped down. I have never experienced rain that intense! It was like actual buckets of water being poured directly on our heads, and it was super fun figuring out where to get the bus in the dark and the crowds and the buckets of rain and, it turned out, the fact that they'd closed off the street that the bus stop was on and so decided to just put the bus stop... somewhere else. 

And then it turned out that the bus also wasn't making proper stops, but was just stopping whenever someone dinged the bell? And not even at the next bus stop after the ding, but right when you dinged the bell the bus would screech to a stop and out you went into the maelstrom! So we accidentally got off several blocks too early, which wouldn't have been a big deal if it hadn't been, you know, DUMPING DOWN ACTUAL BUCKETS OF WATER ON OUR HEADS. We ended up scurrying between awnings, stopping under each awning to catch our breath and be upset, and then scurrying for the next awning, occasionally ending up under the same awning with other sodden souls. At least I wasn't worried about being crimed, because how could one possibly manage to hold us up in such a downpour?

The older kid did NOT appreciate being woken up when the three of us poured ourselves, dripping, into our hotel room, but OMG I was so happy to exchange my wet clothes--wet down to the undies, y'all!--for a hot shower, a pair of sweats, my brand-new concert T-shirt, and a heaping pile of McDonald's. 

The next time the four of us take a road trip together, it will be to drop them both off at their colleges!

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Kid-Free in New York City: Day 2 is When Dreams Come True!

We woke up to SNOW!!!!!!!

It was the perfect magical winter morning in New York City. I think the schoolkids even had a snow day? Happily, all the museums and other assorted tourist destinations stayed open, so after a breakfast of cold pizza, my partner and I bundled into our typical February midwestern outdoor gear and headed out into the magic.

Here in the elevator is when I finally got tipped off enough to Google our hotel and figure out that we were sleeping in a Republican stronghold:

I'm trying to visualize what a Republican women's Galentine Dinner even looks like, but to be honest I don't really know what a regular Galentine Dinner looks like, either, sooo...

Republican stronghold or not, our hotel was SO conveniently located! Just a couple of blocks walking through the snow, and here we are at the MOMA:

I'm not really an art aficionado, shame on me, so I mostly wanted to look at the famous stuff:

I was SUPER excited to see my pal Frida, though!

And words cannot describe my excitement when I saw THIS crowd:

What are they looking at, you ask? Why, none other than my old nemesis, Mr. Starry Night!

This 2,000-piece Starry Night puzzle and I have been locked in battle since early December.

It's an absolutely terrible puzzle, a miserable experience all around, ridiculously hard AND with pieces so poorly cut that they will fit in places they aren't supposed to be, and I tell it all the time that Vincent Van Gogh would be ashamed of how unpleasant it's being to me.

Fortunately, its real-life counterpart is delightful:

Also, I think the real-life Starry Night is actually smaller than my puzzle at home? Weird. 

I wish I had a 2,000-piece puzzle of THIS Van Gogh painting! I'm obsessed with it. It randomly feels like an illustration of some kind of Lovecraftian abomination--I keep seeing that curly beard as squid tentacles, and I don't know why, but I love it. 

Fortunately, my partner has a proper appreciation of art, although I absolutely saw him get chided by a docent for standing too close to one of the paintings. He says he was looking at the artist's brushstrokes, and I believe him, because unlike me he does not have intrusive thoughts that encourage him to maybe just lick the painting a little bit.

But don't worry--I didn't even lick the Mondrian, even though it's such a pretty red!

Nobody could lick the Monet, because they had a barrier up. It's so big, though, that how would you even decide where to put your tongue?

Warhol is surprisingly unlickable, even though he's literally painting food. It think it's probably because most of these soups sound disgusting. 

Pollack, on the other hand, is VERY lickable:

My self-control really won out, because not only did I not lick the art, but I also did not buy a hundred books in the gift shop. Instead, I sneakily and guiltily took photos of the ones I want so I could request them from the library when I got home. That big biography is actually already on hold for me!

After I'd seen all the stereotypical must-sees, my partner dragged me off to experience the proper modern art:

The giant stacked cubes didn't do anything for me, but fine, I DID love the giant hanging stuffed animal sculptures. My old Grumpy Bear is definitely there in that blue sphere:

After most of the day at the art museum, we'd built up sufficient good culture credit so we could, with clear consciences, then go do what is possibly the cheeziest, corniest, hokiest thing you can possibly do in New York City:

If you don't go to Ellen's Stardust Diner to eat overpriced food, drink overpriced (but healthily strong!) cocktails, and watch the waitstaff sing Broadway karaoke, then are you even a New York City tourist?!?

WE are PROPER New York City tourists!!!

The kids would have HAAAAATED it. There's a non-zero chance the college kid would have cried, because she's done that when less embarrassing things have happened in restaurants. The teenager would have never willingly left the house with me ever again. I had an absolutely astounding amount of fun.

Since we're already being corny, might as well take another swing through Times Square!

Okay, actually THIS might be the corniest thing we did in New York City, but when we were there last, every time we walked through Times Square, I swear there was an actual line out the door and around the block consisting of tourists waiting to get into the M&M store. This time, there was no line and we had a little time to kill, so in we went to wander:

And yes, I WAS tempted by the Pride merch. They might even have gotten me if they'd said that they were donating any part of their proceeds to any LGBTQIA+ organizations, because that sweater with the rainbow neckline is randomly very cute?

Saved by corporate greed!

I finally could not stand the suspense anymore, and we walked over to stand in line underneath the most glorious marquee in New York City:

I was so excited that I was about to cycle right around into a panic attack, but thankfully the line started moving and before I could freak out further, somehow I'd found myself in the third row center of the Walter Kerr Theater, holding an honest-to-god playbill and looking at the honest-to-god Hadestown set:

I sent this photo to the kids with the caption "!!!!", and got a serious of supportive exclamation points and keyboard smashes back. Daughters are the greatest gift a person could have.

Y'all, I was so excited at where I was that I did not even notice that every single other person in the audience was also in a flurry of excitement not because it was also their first time at Hadestown and they'd been waiting something like five years for this but actually because apparently LIN-MANUEL FREAKING MIRANDA was sitting two rows directly behind me? And generously doing selfies and autographs with people? And I did not even notice, and if I had noticed, I don't think I would have even cared. If it was Andre DeShields, probably... Eva Noblezada, definitely. 

Anyway, our seats were SO GOOD! We were a little too close to see the elevator set piece (come to think of it, two rows directly behind me was probably the perfect seat...), but the loss was worth it to have the hanging lights swinging over my head. I could see every expression on everyone's faces, and when the main characters knelt at center stage, I was essentially eye level with them. 

I've been a fan of musical theatre since I was 13 or 14 ("Phantom of the Opera" was my gateway original cast recording, and then I found "Hair," and then there was the year that I listened to "Evita" on loop...), but this was my first actual live Broadway show. I've watched so many pirated recordings of Hadestown on YouTube that I was actually surprised at how different, better, and more powerful it was to see it live. I mean, I obviously knew that it was going to be better and more special, but I figured I'd seen it multiple times on screen already, so the better and special parts would just be the experience of being there, like seeing my favorite band playing live after having only listened to their music on Spotify for years. But it was SO different, and SO much more special. Live theatre is this Whole Other Thing that is built between you and the actors and musicians brand-new every single time, this whole other ephemeral thing that you experience just the once, every single time. I'm a little glad that I don't live close to New York City and so can't dilute my memory by watching Hadestown every week, like I would absolutely want to. Even if I didn't get tired of it and instead became the Hadestown version of a Disney Adult, it surely wouldn't stay as magical in my memory as it is now. 

Best. Christmas present. EVER.

After the show, I still completely failed to notice the apparently revived Lin-Manuel Miranda fervor as everyone else but me who hadn't already seen him suddenly saw him, and instead my partner and I busted out of the theater (well, I did take a small detour, because a few minutes later my partner looked at me and was all, "Where did you get that Hadestown souvenir cup?!?" I said, "Someone just left it on the aisle floor so I picked it up!" I drank wine out of it last night while watching Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and it made me very happy), took a hard right just like the YouTube videos I'd watched told me to, and ended up here, hanging out in front of the stage door:

Here's where I FINALLY heard all the Lin-Manuel Miranda scuttlebutt, as everyone else was gossiping about it and showing each other their cellphone selfies. I've never met a celebrity out in the wild--do they mind having people come up to them and ask for photos and autographs when they're someplace like the theater? Like, I know they get paid an absolute ton of money, but they're not being paid right then, so is it rude to make them work when they're not getting paid, or do we just count all the ton of money that they ARE being paid as part of their compensation for having to take photos with tourists on their downtime? I have no idea, but I AM 99% certain that if Lin-Manuel Miranda had happened to have been seated next to me, he would never have experienced someone awkwardly ignoring him as hard as I would have, on account of I have no capacity for interacting with any strange human, much less a famous one. Just... shudder. 

Anyway, here's me not giving a flip that I didn't see Lin-Manuel Miranda with my own eyes!

So, my first stage door experience wasn't a bust, because the vibe was very good, I got all the Lin-Manuel Miranda hot goss that I'd been oblivious to while it was happening, and Sojourner Brown graciously came out and signed my playbill and gazed upon me with all her talent and beauty:

None of the other actors came out, though, because while we were all standing outside, freezing and gossiping about Lin-Manuel Miranda, the man himself was inside, comfy and warm and schmoozing up all of our actors!

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Ah, well. Back to the Republican stronghold, then, for shawarma-- 

--and bed. 

Tomorrow, I meet Winnie-the-Pooh! Shall I ask for his autograph and a selfie?

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!