Learning to Rock…

Wednesday, as I was wrapping up the workday, I walked out of the copy room in the office to overhear my co-worker Tiffany telling one of the attorneys that she didn’t know what she was going to do, she didn’t have anyone’s phone numbers with her because she left her cell phone at home. She sounded stressed, so as the attorney walked back to her office, I asked her what was going on.

She had told me earlier in the day that she was going to see Radiohead that night. Turns out, originally she had grass seats that she had gotten from Pat Green’s manager. The attorney, a big Radiohead fan, was going to the show too – and decided that those seats weren’t good enough. So at 2:00, he purchased seats for Row K, Center Section. Now it was 5:15, and he couldn’t go to the show. She didn’t want to go alone, but didn’t have anyone’s numbers to call.

Then she asked me if I wanted to go.

Remember when I first signed up for Listen.com and I confessed how music clueless I am? Yeah, Listen.com has helped – I was listening to Coldplay last week, and I have a serious addiction to John Mayer. My playlist is a mile long. My music tastes are ecclectic, and it’s rare for me to not like something. But Radiohead is one of the few groups not available on Listen.com, and I’ve never really heard their music. I basically had no clue what I was going to be in for.

However, we’re talking Row K, Center section. Seats so close you can see their facial expressions, watch their every move without any problem. Freakin’ kick ass seats.

So I said yes. More like, “Hell yeah! I’ll go!”

I’m glad I did. It was a GREAT concert. The music, the lights – it was awesome. At the same time, it was amusing – and I left with some very interesting observations.

:: At a Radiohead concert, the line for the men’s bathroom is at least 5 times as long as the line for the women’s bathroom. This is a very unusual thing, not often seen at any public venue. We took advantage of it.

:: The three teenage boys in the row in front of me jumped through the whole concert. Jumped. One of them was about 6’2″ as it was, so watching him jump non-stop was amusing. I don’t know how you could jump like that for hours, and I think he had pogo sticks for legs.

:: On the other hand, the guy with the college frat guy look across the aisle from me was a master of the air guitar. He kept bopping his head from front to back too, often with his tongue sticking out. I could almost see him standing next to a keg, cruising the ladies. The air guitar would have turned most women off though.

:: Speaking of guitars, I think that the members of Radiohead used several of the 10 best electric guitars for every song. Seriously. A lot of guitar changes. Does a different guitar really make that big of a difference?

:: While the majority of people at the concert looked like teens and people in their 20s full of angst, there were two couples across the aisle from me that were in their 50s or 60s. One of the men was wearing a Hawaiian print shirt. Music does not believe in age discrimination.

:: I probably looked like a soccer mom. I had come straight from work, so I looked more like a mom that had dropped her teenage kids off for the cheap grass seats and taken the good ones for myself. Thinking that made me feel a little bit better about not fitting in. I don’t do angst very well.

:: “Love is patient. Love is not fucked up.” We overheard a teen yell this out the window of the car he was in at another car. It became our anthem for the night.

:: I didn’t have a clue about Radiohead when Wednesday started. By the time Wednesday ended, I owned a CD (“The Bends”) and I’ll probably have another one next week (“Hail to the Thief”). Yes, I am learning to rock…