Thursday, November 1

Trick or Treat?

I was really excited for this show, a bit apprehensive about the type of crowd that would be there, and curious about my first Ryan Adams show. I'd heard good and bad things about his performances and I was hoping for good.
We timed our arrival perfectly and I was starting to get hopeful that this would surely be a treat.
A few songs in and I was really enjoying myself. Ryan sounded wonderful and he was into some trippy space jams a la The Grateful Dead which I was enjoying.
Then things started to shift. A long and lean couple inched their way into a space near us and stood intertwined, limbs, lips, everything. Annoying. Then the couple in front of us started to move around, a lot, they were talking constantly and if they weren't talking they were shifting positions, or one was going to get beers or hit the bathroom. They were already taller than me and I kept having to tilt my head or body so I could still see the stage. Why couldn't they just stand still and watch the show? Weren't they here to see the show? Then the woman next to me continued to swig from a flask her boyfriend kept producing and as she got more drunk her insistence to find a friend named Boggy grew and when that friend finally found them after much waving of arms and lit up cell phones the show was much less important, they had conversation to get in. Then the group behind us became whole and decided that when Ryan wasn't singing or playing songs they knew, it was okay to talk. No, it is actually not okay annoying people- because some people, you know maybe 1 or 2 of the 200 others in this venue actually did pay to hear Ryan Adams, not the dull roar of your conversations.
I have this problem, sometimes, when if something really starts to bug me or get under my skin I can't let it go, I can't brush or shake if off, it stays with me, sticks with me, creeping in under my skin, getting in my head, getting to me. It was bad on Halloween night. I got more and more miserable the more time went on, the little stupid things started to get to me, and I couldn't let any of it go. All these "tricks" getting to me.
When Ryan went off the stage for a break between sets, I turned to Matt and he gave me the permission I needed without saying a word. We had to push hard to get ourselves out of the ballroom, and I thought, "Thank God I'm getting out of here I bet the second set would have been so much more miserable for me."
As we left, a security woman asked, "How was the show?" I responded quickly with, "He was great, the crowd sucked." And she nodded as if she could tell, she's worked shows before she knows how to spot a bad crowd when she sees one, and she had a sense that the one inside this venue was there to have a crazy Halloween night.
I thanked Matt the whole way home, and he just kept saying, "It's not a problem, I wouldn't have been happy staying if I knew you weren't happy, I really don't mind leaving." And that constant reminder that I have someone on my side in these things, someone who helps draw what gets under my skin out with his support and genuine desire for me to be happy was my treat.

1 comment:

Mom said...

This a sweet one. I'm glad you got your treat.