Funny the Way It Is

If I make a lot of errors in my writing today, it's because the little creature that sometimes jumps up and down on my optic nerve in a migrainic frenzy got a little extra fuel last night in the form of loud music, bright flashing lights, beer, and second-hand herbage fumes. I am hungover not (entirely) from alcohol but from the whole concert experience.

Jason is a big Dave Matthews Band fan. And while not as hard-core a fan as he is, I love them, too, and have been wanting to see them in concert. Jason has gone before with one of his brothers, but the timing of the concerts is always bad for me; he's always come to Cincy on a weeknight when I'm still in school or school has just started back up. Some folks have the stamina to stay at a concert until midnight and get up before dawn to go to work; I am not those folks.

When I heard that he was coming the very first week that I would officially be on summer vacation, I couldn't resist the siren call. So last night saw me at Riverbend, our best and biggest outdoor concert venue, with Jason, one of his brothers, and a few thousand of my closest friends.

Any concert is a learning experience. A Riverbend DMB concert is a senior seminar. Here's what I learned:

1. Bad second-hand pot smoke smells like skunk. I am simultaneously proud and embarrassed that I was 35 years old when I learned this.

2. It sucks to be a woman who needs to pee in a crowded venue. It does not suck to be a man who needs to pee at a concert or the way out of a concert, as all you have to do is go stand by a fence or, if you're really discreet, just take care of your business right there among the standing, singing, cheering crowd. Not that I know anyone who did that. Oh, wait, I do.

3. Nothing clears a crowd waiting in line for a stall in the women's restroom like a young drunk girl running in saying she's going to puke.

4. Paying $7.50 for a beer is ridiculous. But sometimes worth every dime.

5. You'd think with beer costing $7.50 that people wouldn't throw it. But they do. And nothing smells quite like beer hair.

6. When you come home from a concert with a hoarse voice, headache, beery hair, and wet shoes from walking in puddles of what may or may not have been rain, but all you can think is, "Wow. That was awesome!", then you just saw a really good show. Or possibly you just really need to get out more.

Any of you lined up to see a good concert this summer? What are the chances that you, too, will find yourself waiting in line to buy a $7.50 beer?