Wow.
First, let me say that I liked the band (DMB) well enough to pay to hear/see them again, and I liked the venue (Alpine Valley) well enough to go see another concert there. Second, let me say that personal physical pain was present the whole evening (mostly in the form of pain in my feet and back, the latter from menstrual cramps), so that was something I had to transcend to enjoy myself. And I DID enjoy myself, quite a bit.
Those things said, the whole concert was like a drunken fraternity/sorority party with 40,000 other people. More than once, someone fell down drunk in front of us, in the mud, and decided that curling up there was a better alternative than trying to regain verticality. The pickup truck next to which we parked--completely randomly, the parking lot being a big field--contained someone so drunk before the show that I'm not certain he made it into the show, plus his brother was worried that he had vomited so much that he was dehydrated. That is, there were a LOT of really, really drunk people there; my Friend said it was almost like a Jimmy Buffet concert that way.
But the weirdest aspect, by far, was the . . . attitude? of the attendees. Everyone was busy mediating the experience--calling each other on cellphones, text-messaging, taking pictures with the cellphones--and not actually experiencing the experience. Similarly, people chatted the whole fucking time: It was as though they had paid to go to this frat party, and there was a really good band playing, and they'd all "Woooooo!" when the band played a good song (leaving a lot of unsaid hooooos), or sing along when the band played a song they knew, but mostly the band was kinda background music more than the reason they showed up at the event. Which was annoying for those of us who wanted to, you know, HEAR the music, without a constant conversation track in the background, foreground, and sideground. Very, very weird, though the amateur anthropologist in me was fascinated.
Sunday we hiked one of the trails at the southern end of the Kettle Moraine, which was wonderful, in several dimensions. The weather was perfect--sunny, warm, but not hot--and the bugs were minimal, despite all of the recent rain, and my body really appreciated the opportunity to walk up and down hills, to walk in general (rather than merely stand), and to be outside. And Friend is really good company. So, really, all good.
My mother isn't exactly all good, however; she had a relapse at the end of the week. They started her up again on the antibiotics, and they've given her a wider-spectrum replenish-the-gut-with-good-bacteria supplement ("I had to go to the natural foods store to get it."), and she has no strength or endurance whatsoever. She sounded okay, but only just okay, when I talked to her today, and I'm a little worried about how or whether she'll manage to get her strength back. And my dad has to decide whether to continue the TB treatments for his bladder cancer; he had another bad reaction last week. I suggested he ask the doctor what the worst-case scenarios are for discontinuing that treatment (he's had eight already, and is that enough to reduce the chances of recurrence significantly?) or for continuing it (how serious are the bad reactions? can they be life-threatening?). Feh.
This week "should" suck, in the sense that Bossman is leaving town tomorrow and will be gone until Friday, I think, but I'm going to hear B. B. King tomorrow night and I've decided to just not care. I'm hoping to get the next batch of proofreading before the weekend, and I'm hoping to hear from an editor friend at a university press who will be in town next weekend, in the hopes of hooking up for dinner or something. So, really, the week will only suck if I insist on getting too much sleep.
6 comments:
Sorry your mom and dad are having a rough time of it.
As for concerts these days, yes! What is with these people? It was the same at the Police concert. Band hasn't played together in 20 years, so let's pay $100 apiece for tickets and...have conversations?
I like DMB okay, too. Never quite got the "frat boy band" reputation because they seem so mellow—oh. It's the audience. A horrendous, alcohol-poisoned audience. 'Tis a shame.
Best of luck to (and with) your parents. It's bad enough when one parent is dangerously ill; bad-cubed when it's both. Your questions for your dad's doc are very good ones. Doc will only be able to give a combination stats and seat-of-the-pants answer, at best, but it will be information your dad can work with.
I am with you about yakkers at concerts. It's not only the open-air gigs, either; people jabber on and on and I've come damn close to murder once or twice.
Why would some office-drone wanker think the tootsie he's chatting up would rather hear his latest sales conquests that the Blind Boys of Alabama? Never mind the rest of us. I don't want to hear about your kid's kindergarten teacher's odditied; I want to hear Richard Thompson! He's FUNNIER THAN YOU and he's SMARTER THAN YOU and he's a BETTER WRITER THAN YOU and even his throwaway lines are MORE INTERESTING THAN YOUR WHOLE BIOGRAPHY!
(WTF is a person like that doing at a RT concert anyway? You'd think that wit would slice out the heavily self-absorbed.)
When Ralph Stanley sang "O Death" at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass fest last year (year before?) -- he's 80-something and had had a triple bypass maybe seven months before, and that stuff all just adds to his presence -- everybody did STFU. I was amazed. Even the babies and dogs STFU. You could have heard a hummingbird fart.
(And a peregrine flew over during that set. Thought I was gonna die right on the spot.)
Ya know? Ralph commanded it, but every damned performer on that bill deserved it, and, more to the point, so did the rest of us who'd come to hear them. Not to hear yer big flappin nonentertaining mouth.
And your little dog too.
Um, why yes, I do get a little worked up over that.
My best wishes to your parents, and to you.
To Ron S.: I am returning to the ranks of working musicians next week, after a decades-long layoff, and I have told myself that this time I will respect my audience, even if they want to talk among themselves. I will try to command their attention, but bad on me if I am unable.
Orange, my friend had seen DMB at Alpine two years ago, and he was blown away by how different the crowd was this time. he said last time people listened and were friendly hippie types rather than drunken frat boys/sorority girls.
Ron/Orange, it seems as though people are more interested in being able to say that they were at a concert than actually listening to the concert, which I don't get. Apparently I am not the only person annoyed by this. The one exception I've seen in recent years is small-venue Springsteen.
And thank you all for your wishes for my parents. They're pretty smart, and I know how to work the google for them and help them phrase questions. The fact is, they're getting older--Dad will be 77 in two weeks, and Mom is 72--and shit just starts to break down.
So here you are. I'd lost all my bookmarks and I couldn't remember your new site name. Glad to see you're still making pastry and feeling a bit better than you did last year - although I'm sorry about your parents.
And so it goes.
Welcome back, susie! (for those of you who don't know her, she's over at Suburban Guerilla.)
Post a Comment