Last weekend, I saw REM perform. Being a 30-something parent with multiple professions, I rarely get to go to concerts any more, so I try to pick them well. Stipe can still rock like he did 30 years ago, and seeing Mike Mills glow when he took over vocals for “Don’t Go Back to Rockville” was confirmation I’d chosen wisely.
Sometime in my mid-20s I decided I was too old (or too good) to ever:
1) sit on the lawn at an amphitheater
2) move without professional help
3) funnel beer (whiskey is fine).
I’ve concluded many times that these were very good decisions. Row 20 was great.
I was reminded of a few more pretty good decisions I’ve made when I heard the following conversation prefaces from the girl to my left:
“When I first started doing cocaine I would…”
“When I was dating a married man, I used to always…”
“Damnation, I would do some filthy things to that bald homosexual…”
Thankfully, I’ve been able to avoid all three temptations, challenging as such restraint has been.
After the show, we picked up Pretty Bride and went to a bar down the street for some karaoke that happened to be a gay bar. I was halfway hoping Mr. Stipe and friends would come after the show, which, unfortunately, motivated me to party like the rockstars I thought might join us. A rock star I am not, despite singing a Poison cover shortly after 3a.m. that made several other patrons wonder aloud about my sexual preferences: “yeah, there’s no way a straight man would dance and sing like that on stage.” Pretty Bride had to set them straight.
The next morning, I decided to close the bathroom door on my left hand several times so that I would no longer notice my pounding head. Baby didn’t realize I’d been in bed < 3 hours when she decided it was time to get up. I’m certain the other drivers enjoyed watching me pull over on the way to church to throw up after the smell of freshly poured asphalt hit my quivering stomach. I know I enjoyed hearing Pretty Bride explain to Inquisitive Tween that “Daddy must’ve had something that didn’t agree with him last night.”
That “something” being 9 hours of beer drinking and 1 chased illusion.
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For more blogs written by persons too old to drink for 9 hours but do it anyway, look here.
i think it important to do things like this occasionally as adults to remind us that we’re really not missing anything.
I agree with the first comment. This experience reminds me of The Decemberists concert I attended about a year ago where I acheived all of the following things (like any good 33 year old trying to be 21):
1. wasted before the sun even went down
2. got in a fight at an indie rock show
3. vomitted
4. turned up in a show review the next day…not by name, but as part of the “jerks” at the back of the room who wouldn’t stop yelling.
Keepin’ it real!
R.E.M.’s been around that long? Geez. Now I feel old. Thanks a lot…you really must have been drunk to pick a Poison song. Was it “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” or “Talk Dirty to Me”?
My “funny blog” is http://unfinishedrambling.wordpress.com
Unfinished, it was the latter. I was elated, as most karaoke companies do not have this particular Poison hit.
Someone else just wrote about seeing REM too. Why am I not in this concert loop!??
Saw them back during ‘Green’ and loved it. Older REM is my favorite music for roadtrippin’ around the USA. And yes, I feel like you do after a night of drinking now too.
Hi Alice, check out http://www.remhq.com/live.php for dates, though you may need to go to EU this summer!
I saw REM as part of the Rock for Change Tour in 2004 (aka the ‘Its Pointless But We’ll Hope Anyway’ tour). I LOVE them, but I have to admit, I can live and die without actually WATCHING Michael Stipe ever again. His dancing disturbs me.
Geez, that girl to your left must have been a real cashed out ol slut. However, shieldmaiden96 is misguided. A solid 2 hours of bizarro rockabilly hip thrusting from a man old enough to be my papa? Ain’t a damn thing wrong with that.
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