a busy summer part 4: the make-up concert

I slept in on the Wednesday after driving home from Atlanta at 3:00 am.  I didn’t feel so much like a 49 year-old on the drive back, but I did feel like a person with very dry eyes and contacts that were hoping to jump out at the first chance.  This kept my eyes squinty the whole trip home and made me even more ready to sleep once I hit my pillow.  The last couple of weeks had piled up and at this point I felt like I could actually relax and rest.  I forget how late I slept the next morning, but the only thing that got me out of bed was knowing how terribly hot it was already getting outside.  I needed to run before the temperatures got into the 90s.  

When G got home from work, Violet and I recounted the major details of our concert adventure.  “You MISSED WEEZER???” was repeated a few times.  I held up my HellaMega Tour shirt to show the cool design and when I did, I found myself staring at the back of the shirt for the first time.  Each of the summer concert dates were listed there and my eyes fixed on “Jacksonville, Florida”.  I can admit I began concert scheming at that moment.

It was Wednesday evening and I had one more day to continue cleaning up from the studio sale and to begin preparing for our family vacation to Florida.  We had decided to leave on Friday to extend our fun and spend a night in Charleston, SC on the way.  This would break up our drive a little and give us a chance to get some good food as well.  My mind began to produce formulas and calculations you’d expect to see on a chalk board in Einstein’s office.  Sure it was crazy to consider going to another HellaMega Tour stop, but what did that have to do with anything?  I mean, if this was going to be a Seinfeld episode, I might as well play the part of Kramer, right?  We were driving right through Jacksonville to get to St. Augustine.  What if we found cheap tickets and everyone could just go see the concert?  I mentioned the idea out loud.  I felt the ridiculousness bounce off the walls.  Violet immediately embraced it and started begging to go.  Blue was against it but I could tell he could be negotiated down.  G did not shout “NO!”  This was a start.

Thursday I worked on getting all the art wrapped and put away or hung and stacked back in its proper storage place.  I packed for vacation.  I looked up ticket prices, you know, just in case.  Friday morning I ran, had coffee, and loaded everything in the car.  We drove to Charleston and I talked out loud about the possibilities on the way.  It didn’t seem very practical and I couldn’t quite work out how the timing would allow us to either get checked in at the rental early enough to drive back to Jacksonville and NOT MISS WEEZER AGAIN or arrive at the rental before midnight after the concert.  I pretty much dismissed the idea and moved on with thinking about what I was going to eat for dinner and for breakfast the next morning.  

Dinner was good and breakfast on Saturday was not great, but a good coffee made it better.  We started our drive south and the topic of the concert came up again but this time with a different plan.  What if we were able to be dropped off right outside the stadium this time?  No parking or traffic problems.  I remembered seeing passengers bailing out of the cars around us stuck in traffic in Atlanta.  What if Violet and I were dropped off at the gate, G and Blue found a cool place to do back-to-school shopping, and then picked us up after Weezer performed?  This was starting to sound more reasonable and actually, very possible.  The Florida state line was getting closer and Violet and I started to get excited.  It looked like we were going to the concert!

Violet had a few questions.  “Do we have tickets?”  Well, no.  We’ll buy them at the Box Office when we get there.  “What if they’re sold out?”  I don’t think they will be, but if so, we’ll see if we can buy some from a scalper.  “What will we eat?”  Hmmm, it’s a football stadium, so surely there are restaurants nearby where football hooligans get drunk on gameday.  “How will they know where to pick us up?”  We have phones.  We’ll figure something out.  Before long we saw the stadium growing on the horizon.  Without a lot of warning, we rolled up right outside of Gate 3 and Violet and I sort of collected ourselves before bailing out of the car.  It was around 1:30 pm.  We were determined to not be late this time!

Florida is hot.  Like, on a regular day under regular conditions, Florida is hot.  We were right at the tail end of a heat wave in the Southeast and it was a very bright, sunny day.  We were both sweating before we hit our walking stride to find the Box Office.  We were also not football fans and out-of-towners so we had no idea where we were or where we were going.  The gates were locked so we were relegated to the exterior perimeter of the grounds.  We walked along from Gate 3 in what we agreed was a logical direction toward Gate 1.  There were signs indicating the Box Office was beside Gate 1.  We had a plan and sweat running down our backs.  

Gate 3 led to Gate 4 and then there was another building in our way.  Walking around it seemed ridiculous and maybe impossible so we backtracked.  On the opposite end of the stadium we encountered literal roadblocks of cones, busses, and 18 wheelers.  There were even a few police officers.  We asked how to get around and when the policeman didn’t know, he just told us to ignore the barriers and walk through.  We appreciated that.  Maybe an hour after stepping out of the car, we were buying cheap tickets at the Box Office window.  We both felt a little relief after securing our tickets but we also felt our stomachs growling.  The hotel breakfast was a long time ago now so we opened the map on my phone and started looking for restaurants.  The few we found within a mile of the stadium were closed that day.  The sweat was soaking through my shirt and Violet was only in slightly better shape.  She said she didn’t want to walk a long way in the heat so we started looking for shade in a Florida parking lot.  You know what you don’t find much of in a Florida parking lot?  That’s right, shade.  There was a Charlie Brown tree a few hundred feet behind Gate 1 with a shade just large enough for us to stand under.  We took our position there and prepared to wait patiently for the gates to open at 5:30 pm.  

I’m not a patient person.  My default when I get a spare moment is to check my phone.  Oh hush, you do it too.  Violet sat on the shaded concrete, I stood and we both checked our phones.  I had not charged mine since waking up and I suddenly became aware of how important it was to save the battery.  I needed my phone for our digital tickets and to figure out how to find the car when the concert was over.  And let’s be honest, I was going to make some photos and videos of Weezer too.  I turned my phone off and rested it in my pocket.  We people watched for 2 hours and we were not disappointed.  Hair, outfits, age ranges, it was all so worth seeing.

This is a good time to take a side trip with me about proper concert attire.  I know you don’t come to me for fashion but hear me out as I think this is a well-thought-out and time-tested theory.  I have a rule about what to wear to a concert.  It’s simple.  Never wear a t-shirt of the band you’re going to see that night.  It’s uncouth.  Philistine.  You wear shorts or jeans and comfortable shoes and you pick a t-shirt of a band you think the concert band will appreciate.  Sure, you could be a person who wakes up and washes their Green Day shirt to wear to the Green Day concert.  Or, you could actually put some thought into it and consider Green Day’s influences.  Who inspires them?  What does their particular style of music make you want to listen to?  I mean, let’s say you’re the lucky one person who happens to walk past Billie Joe Armstrong in the wing joint next door.  Do you want him to see a commoner wearing a Green Day shirt or would you rather him see a dude in an Ella Fitzgerald shirt?  Maybe it’s a big leap to imagine him pointing to your Ella shirt and saying “Nice shirt, man” but it’s an even bigger leap to think you’re going to impress him with your Green Day shirt from Target.  Not judging, I love Target bargains too, I’m just saying maybe wear the Green Day shirt to the Avett Brothers concert.  Speaking of judging, I stood in that tiny shade with sweat pooling in my socks weeping at all the Green Day shirts walking around the parking lot.  In the words of Violet, "uncultured swine".

There was also the guy in the fancy kilt to enjoy.  The pot-bellied male in his freshly cut-off t-shirt showcasing the pot-belly and his friend in what appeared to be a bikini.  There was the woman who decided it was too hot for this crap and just walked around in shorts and a bra.  And the old guy in jeans and boots who wanted to tell me about all the Aerosmith concerts he went to back in his day.  We didn’t exactly get bored.  I don’t remember what Violet was wearing but since we didn’t know we were going to a concert when we got up that morning…or two days before when we packed, she was probably wearing the equivalent to my khaki shorts and white t-shirt.  I remembered to grab my straw hat out of the car to protect my head.  

As 5:30 approached, the lines at the Gates grew longer.  I had a better understanding of the concert timeline this time around and I was in no hurry to get out of my shade.  With a little patience, the line at our gate grew until we were technically in line without having to leave our tree sanctuary.  The gates opened and we were through security and inside pretty fast.  We made our way immediately up to the upper level of food vendors and a nice lady beckoned us to come eat at her station.  We snagged a couple of stadium dogs and waters and basically inhaled them.  We agreed these were the best dogs we’d ever had and laughed, probably half from heat exposure.  We saw some lady drop out from the heat on the way up the ramp but here, almost alone in the stadium shade, we enjoyed the breeze blowing out from one of the tunnels.  It was nice.  Our complete lack of a plan was working out perfectly.

After “dinner” we found our seats and still had plenty of time to bake in the full sun of the upper deck.  When we sat down, I noted on our makeshift sundial where my head created a shadow on the row in front of us.  A little later it had moved a couple of rows down.  Soon a group came in and sat behind us and provided some shade.  My shadow moved another row and the opening act hit the stage.  The band was called the Interrupters and though we missed them at the first concert, Violet had looked them up on Apple Music and we sorta liked them.  We were excited to see them and Violet even sang along with some of the songs.  We took a short break in the tunnel to cool down and get a fresh bottle of water, and then we were back in our seats, jamming to the music. 

The stage was reset for Weezer and as they were converting the stage I realized how lucky we were to be guessing correctly.  This half baked "plan" was all based on the tour following the same set schedule as Atlanta.  If Weezer had not played first on this night, I would have been in big trouble with my vacationing family.  When the teal lightning bolts and huge drum kit was moved into place, I smiled, relaxed a little more, and texted our ride that Weezer was about to start.

The next hour was bliss.  Weezer took the stage with their 80s era guitars and Rivers in his costume that looked like it was from a John Hughes film.  They tore into every single song I ever wanted to hear.  “Island In The Sun”, “Beverly Hills”, “My Name Is Jonas”, even “Surf Wax America”.  It was a perfect sampling of every great Weezer album.  I got to hear “El Scorcho” and when “Undone: The Sweater Song” came on, Violet and I sang so loud together!  She had maybe heard the song twice before but she learned fast.  The dude beside me even joined us and we shared smiles and laughs.  With only a buffer seat beside Violet, we were packed a little tighter but everyone was well behaved.  There were not even secret vapers this time.  Strangers sang harmony, danced and swayed together, and when the confetti cannons blasted at the end of Weezer’s final song and the wind brought some of it up to our level, the nice lady near Violet grabbed a piece of purple paper and handed it to Violet.  

That was our cue to leave.  I know it was confusing to our neighbors, but we grabbed our trash and headed out.  We were so stoked about the concert we’d just experienced that we didn’t even worry much about not knowing where we were going.  The exits were not even opened yet and when we asked the police officer near the gate how to get out, he said “You’re leaving?”  Yeah, it was too long of a story to tell, but we were only there to see Weezer.  We had a vacation to get on with now.  The ticket lady told us we could just go out the entry gate and she too, questioned us before letting us out.  

Blue dropped a pin and sent me the location of the car.  The distance from the gate to the waiting car was shorter than the line to get merch in the Atlanta concert.  Some nice parking attendant let the car inside the paid parking area for free since they were just picking someone up.  We were on the highway before the next band was on stage.  It worked.  It actually worked!

I guess this one went a little more smoothly than a regular episode of Seinfeld.  However, Violet and I were still hungry after our stadium dogs a few hours earlier.  We drove for 45 minutes to St. Augustine and stumbled past a few fast food restaurants in indecision before directing the car into the parking lot of a beach restaurant.  The map said it was open and we decided we’d just run in and order to-go food.  The lettering on the door indicated they were open until “9:00pm ISH”.  It was 8:33 pm.  We waited at the host stand after the hostess said she’d be right with us.  We waited more.  When she finally came back she said “Oh I’m sorry guys, we closed 3 minutes ago”.  There were a lot of things I wanted to say, but I had just sung several songs with Weezer and my daughter so my mood was almost untouchable.  I chose to be Jerry instead of George Constanza.  We walked next door to the Dollar General and loaded up on junk food.  We unpacked the car at the rental and happily ate garbage food before falling asleep and officially starting the relaxing part of our vacation.  

*** stay tuned for part 5:  the vacation, finally...

a busy summer part 3: the concert

Monday night after returning home wasn’t the best night of sleep I have had recently.  The couch is great for naps but for a full night of sleep it’s not preferred.  That’s where Zeke sleeps each night and while he’s a very sweet and loving dog, he’s not a sleep cuddler.  When we all watch a movie on the couch he sulks in the floor waiting for us to vacate his space.  He was generous with half of the couch when I went to sleep but when I got up in the middle of the night to turn on the fan, he jumped in my spot and I had to physically move him in order to go back to sleep.  Once I woke up and ran, I was pretty recharged.  It had been a busy few weeks, but I had one more day of adventure ahead and I was kind of excited.

I think it was about two years ago that I bought these tickets.  I’ve wanted to see Weezer in concert since 1994 when I bought their first album on CD from a short-lived music store in a mall that’s now a charter school.  Over the years there was always one reason or another but when the HellaMega Tour was announced with Weezer and Green Day on the ticket, I was going.

Fast forward to the pandemic.  The tour was postponed because of people and germs.  When there was hope of things opening back up soon, the tour was rescheduled and I got distantly excited again.  I had a lot of things on the calendar for this summer so I added the tour date to my phone and completely forgot about it.  The concert was this thing I was going to do this summer but I wasn’t really sure when it was actually happening.  About two weeks before the date, I rediscovered it when G asked about it.  It was happening on a Tuesday?  In the middle of the week?  That’s not the best plan for a working person so she was obviously less excited than I was.  And while Violet jumps at a chance to go to a concert, Blue has never attended one and intentionally avoids places where people gather.  It started to look like it wouldn't be a whole family trip.

I kept forgetting about the tickets and really didn’t even know where they were.  I made a feeble attempt to sell the extras on Instagram, but with the new Covid numbers starting to rise again, I don’t think a lot of people we eager to go to a concert in what was being called a “hot spot”.  I took a little solace in the fact that it was still an outside venue, but vowed to not touch anything and then I decided that the extra seats might provide a buffer from others.  So while G and Blue were probably a little relieved that they were not going to stay up most of the night going to a loud concert, the rest of us were still excited.  I wanted to see Green Day.  I wanted to see Weezer.  But the thing I wanted most was to hear “Undone: The Sweater Song” live.  Second on that list was to hear “El Scorcho” live.  That one mentions Green Day so I figured there was a good chance I’d hear it.  

The third thing on my list was Alexander Calder.  There’s a big Calder exhibit in NYC this summer and I had every intention of dragging Blue and Violet to it before school started back.  As the calendar filled up, I saw those chances fade and decided that the Calder/Picasso exhibit at the High Museum in Atlanta might be a nice substitute.  Still I wondered when I would have a day to sacrifice to drive to Atlanta.  I’ll admit that sometimes these things sneak up on me.  Just a few days earlier I was thinking about it and realized, “Oh, I’m already driving to Atlanta!”.  Now I just needed to get there early enough to run by the museum before the concert starts.  No problem.

So I was sleeping on the couch with Zeke and the rest of the family was camped around on mattresses because the air conditioning was out upstairs.  G got up and went to work which left me as the adult in charge for the fix-it guy to come Tuesday morning.  I just needed this to be a quick fix so I could get on the road.  Violet and I dressed in our museum/concert attire and waited.  The appointment did not start on time, but it did go mercifully fast.  We were later than we wanted, but we were on the road to pick up Katherine before noon and I had high hopes.  If traffic was kind, we’d still be ok. 

I’m not sure “kind” is the word I’d use to describe Atlanta traffic that day but we still made it to the museum parking garage in good time.  We were all blown away by the exhibit.  

We took our time going through and even took an extra few minutes to see the contemporary exhibit on a different floor.  This was probably where I went wrong.  I should have stuck to my plan and got out.  You see, there was not a wealth of information about this concert for some reason.  The tickets stated that the gates opened at 5:30.  I knew there was an opening act and then three headlining bands.  I knew my section number and our seat numbers.  That was it.  I tried to call the venue and got nothing.  I even looked up information about the previous tour date online while I waited for the fix-it guy to come.  All I learned there was that Weezer was the first of the headlining bands to perform at that tour stop.  I knew I had a seat so I didn’t think I needed to be there super early.  I thought the opening act would play 45 minutes or so, which would give us until about 7:00 or 7:30 to get in our seats to see Weezer.  My plan was to leave the museum, get a coffee at a cool coffee shop downtown, grab some dinner quickly, and park at the stadium around 6:45.  We’d cruise into our seats by 7:00, get our music, and then drive home late.

That was the plan.  Here’s what actually happened:

We left the museum inspired but a little behind schedule.  We drove across town to the coffee shop.  The coffee shop with amazing coffee and huge letters on the door showing they were open until 6:00 pm.  At 5:30 pm they were NOT open.  Doors locked.  Lights out.  No coffee.  I checked the map and saw we needed to drive a bit to get to the stadium and I announced that was our next stop.  There could be traffic and I didn’t want to chance it.  We were all hungry but we’d just have to grab food inside the stadium in the time we had before the music started. 

Off we drove to the stadium exit.  The stadium that hosts major league baseball games several nights each week for a big part of the year.  The stadium that should have well-marked parking lots and easy ways to get into them.  We sat at that exit moving one car length per 5 minutes for an hour and a half.  There were no police directing traffic, just a ton of tired and panicky, hopeful concert goers trying to figure out where to go.  When we finally made it onto the street with the parking lots, none were clearly marked as ones we could use.  There were no instructions and no humans to ask.  After following other clueless cars up and down the roads, we finally pulled into one with some spaces left and asked the lady scanning cards of we could park there.  She said “NO!”  I asked where we could park.  She said “TWO LEFTS, THREE RIGHTS!” and motioned for me to get out of there.  

It was obvious that everyone on the street in front of us had the same instructions and we moved like a slow parade first taking two lefts and then ever so slowly taking the first and second right.  As we searched for parking, we noted there was music coming from the stadium.  Surely this was just a sound check, right?  During the slow parade, we heard what sounded like Weezer songs.  What was going on?  We weren’t missing the concert were we?  It was definitely a sound check.  It had to be.  The music stopped.  The crowd roared.  It was not a sound check.  Weezer was playing and we were missing it.  I moved an inch closer to the bumper in front of me.  The inch didn’t make me feel any better.  Was this really happening?  I was firmly in the anger stage at this point.  Choosing to not stop for lunch was my fault.  Choosing to add a museum visit to this trip was my fault.  Thinking I had the luxury of time for coffee was my fault.  But this whole business of trying unsuccessfully to get parked and into the stadium certainly felt like a failure on the part of Truist Park or the City of Atlanta.  I was very angry.  

We finally got parked in a remote parking space.  There was a whole moment of the lady holding my debit card at the gate musing about closing the lot but we escaped that disaster.  The three of us power walked through a maze to try to get out of the lot and onto the street.  We were so far away we had to use a map to get to the stadium.  The music was still playing.  The crowd of people who came early to drink in their cars all afternoon were seeing MY concert.  The song “Africa” was clearly blasting from electric guitars and drums in the stadium.  I was not at all excited about hearing this one, but I figured they were close to the end of their set if they were playing it.  Power walking turned into sprinting.  

My concert friends were very kind at this point.  Neither of them chose to point out how I had discouraged lunch in favor of an early dinner.  Neither of them chose to point out that I was the only one in comfortable shoes while we sprinted.  Neither of them chose to blame me for the disaster unfolding before us.  I ran, holding Violet’s hand, practically dragging her toward the stadium, grateful for their mercy.

They were in fact, quite pleasant about it.  Both of them were singing “Africa” while we sprinted and while we waited in line at the gate.  The multi-tasking began immediately.  Katherine held our place in the long security line while Violet and I picked up some merch.  We made it inside the stadium just in time to hear the last three Weezer songs.  We stopped our march to our seats long enough to stand and take in “Buddy Holly”.  Then we continued our climb to the nosebleed seats.  Almost as if they were waiting for us, Weezer bowed and left the stage just as we were directed to our seats.  We sat down and saw an empty stage before us.  All of our neighbors moved to the bathroom lines or food lines.  We were hungry and needed to pee so after we gathered ourselves for a moment, we found our places in the lines too.

I may not have mentioned that it was hot.  August in “Hot-lanta”.  The daily thunderstorm had passed over us while we waited in traffic so it had cooled off a little from the afternoon heat and it wasn’t miserable in the stadium.  We grabbed some very expensive food and water and made our way back to our seats to enjoy.  Fall Out Boy, the other headlining band, played while we waited on food and devoured it.  I recognized some of the songs but wasn’t excited about seeing them play.  I was also still a little ticked off.  We got in another line for merch and it was comically long.  I felt like I was in an episode of Seinfeld.  The one band all three of us wanted to see, we missed.  Violet literally didn’t know any of the other bands.  Want to park?  Follow George Costanza to a remote lot.  Looking for band merch?  Kramer knows a guy.  Just stand in this mile long line.  But all the while, it was almost entertaining.  Almost funny.  We laughed a good bit and after Fall Out Boy left the stage and darkness settled into the stadium, we got excited again.  

From the first note Green Day played, it was worth the effort.  It was easy to sense the pent-up energy from a band who has played one live concert in two years.  They came ready to have fun and they played every great song we wanted to hear and more.  Soon Violet recognized a song and said to me “THEY play this song?”.  Then another one.  “This is THEIR song??” She was even singing along and loving it.  As the clock moved towards 10:15 pm she started checking my watch after each song.  Even I caught myself thinking, “OK, this is great and all, but I gotta drive for three hours after this so exactly how many more songs are we doing?”  Then the next song would start and I would forget about being tired.  There were so many great moments I even started to lose my anger about missing Weezer.  This was so good it made up for it.  

This was also my first concert in almost two years.  In fact, one of my last ones was also in Atlanta a year and a half or so earlier.  My excitement was also, in part, due to not being at a concert in so long.  Live music is so enjoyable when the people around you are behaving.  Maybe it was an older crowd or maybe people were a little more respectful after a pandemic, but I found everyone very, very nice.  There was the one almost liquified woman semi-passed out on a picnic table attempting to shove a pretzel into her mouth, but she wasn’t bothering anyone.  A couple of people nearby vaped secretly but the wind moved it away from us.  No one was smoking anything illegal near us.  No one was annoyingly drunk.  Instead, I caught the eye of a few neighbors, some behind masks,  as we sang along together to the music and we shared a smile.  We “Woooooooo”ed together and raised our hands in the air together.  It felt really good to be back with people.  But also really gross to be back with people.  You know?

The fireworks display signaled the end of the fun and the return of stress.  We had no trouble following the huge crowd to the parking lot, though the crowd depleted severely before we made it to OUR parking lot.  I got out on the road and my two energetic concert friends flipped some sort of invisible switch and were instantly asleep.  I talked angrily to my map voice as she got me lost, changed her mind several times, and then asked me to take a non-existent exit toward home.  That one wasn’t her fault.  Atlanta decided it would be OK to block off the exit to I-85 N, one of the busiest in the state, without putting up any detour signs.  “Let’s just block it off with cones and not tell anyone!” I could see them laughing.  After another hour of sitting in traffic waiting on every other driver on the road to make the same laborious U-turn, I was back on speaking terms with the map lady and better still, on my way home and toward the credits of this episode.  But this is a series and the next episode was just a few days away.

***tune in next time for "part 3:  the make-up concert"...