There for the party

2 tickets to Gretchen Wilson concert: $120

1 overpriced general admission parking at concert: $12

The look on the kid's face when I tell her why we're there: PRICELESS

She had the best time, and could not have been more surprised. We of course had to get a t-shirt (the smallest they had falls off of her) and a picture to remember her first concert by.


Let me say before I go any further that I would have gladly suffered anything to make her that happy.

But.

(you sensed a "but", didn't you?)

Oh. my. Gawd.

It's been a little while since I have been to a concert, and something terrible has happened during my time away. I think it has something to do with having just celebrated yet another anniversary of my 29th birthday.

Don't get me wrong, I love Gretchen Wilson too and was looking forward to the show. And I really enjoyed it - at least as much as I could with the pounding headache I got before the show even started.

Have concerts always been that LOUD? And not just the music. Credit the guy standing behind me who kept yelling "YA YA YA YOOOO!" at the top of his lungs with turning it from regular headache to pre-migraine.

By the time Gretchen was belting out a pretty awesome rendition of "Barracuda", she held a note in that song so long and so loud I swore I could feel my skull splitting right in two.

Back in the day I could party at a concert with the best of them. You know - lots of beer, stand up almost the whole show, sing along at the top of my lungs. Bitch and moan when the sober people behind us asked us to sit down so they could see.

I have become the sober people behind us.

I'd like to think it was because the kid was with me, coupled with my headache. Yeah, yeah, that's it, that must be it, it just has to be. I refuse to seriously consider the alternative.

Now I think I know how my aunt may have felt. You see, my aunt took me to my first concert too, when I was about 8. Donny and Marie Osmond.

Hell, at least I like Gretchen Wilson. My poor aunt must have really suffered.