I've got it. The best perk ever for becoming instantly, insanely, outrageously wealthy: being able to have private concerts with my favorite bands without the pesky problem of other people being in attendance. Because 99% of concert-goers are assholes.
Don't worry, readers. In this one instance, you are part of the 1%. Congratulations! I know, because I've been to concerts with some of you, and you're fine. Really. It's everybody else I'm talking about. You know who they are, because you are also over 30 and mostly not an alcoholic, so you've probably had a concert experience marred by the rabble, as well.
So if I ever win the lottery, you can come to my private concert series. First up: reuniting The Dixie Chicks.You're welcome.
Maybe I'm the weirdo, but I actually like to go to concerts for the music. And I prefer to remember the experience. So I do not understand why people pay over $100 in some instances for tickets just so they can get rip-roaringly drunk, make "WOOOOOOOO!" noises throughout every hit song, talk loudly through every lesser-known ballad to the even drunker girl swaying next to them, hold their phones up for an hour with their back to the main stage trying to get a self-portrait for The Twitter, and make 450 trips to the restroom to rid their bladders of the twelve beers they felt necessary to the experience.
I've been to a few concerts that were not this way.* But only a few. And the very last one I went to, a show from one of my favorite bands where I happened to get invited to fill a last-minute private-box-seat vacancy, may just put me off of concerts for life.
Don't get me wrong, I had fun, mostly. The band was great. The gal that invited me to fill this spot was also a sane concert-goer, so I enjoyed her company. One would think that a private box seat that cost a good chunk of our post-Christmas funds would be filled with other people paying through the nose because they wanted to enjoy the music without fighting it out in the pit, but it turns out they really were just willing to pay extra for the private bathroom so they could literally piss away another couple hundred on liquor.
Sharing a private room with drunk strangers was not nearly as awesome as it sounds.
I know I sound old and cranky. But I am old and cranky. I do still enjoy live music, though, and not just of the symphonic variety where I and my fellow blue-hairs can sit in peace. I do not feel I am a stick-in-the-mud concert-goer, either. I stand up if everyone else stands up, and don't holler at the people in front of me to sit down and stay off my lawn. I sing along, at appropriate volume, at times when the performer seems to be encouraging that. I get loud and rowdy between songs and when the soloist has wowed the crowd. I've even been known to imbibe an adult beverage or two. Yet I am respectful of those around me and really just want to hear and see my favorite artists do their thing live without stomping on everyone's toes, sticking my camera in their faces for extended periods, calling out for "Freebird", publicly displaying my affection for my significant other, sloshing the contents of my cup all over my neighbor's jeans, spending more time crossing in front of the people in my row to get beer/go to the bathroom/chase down boys than I do standing in my ticketed spot, and generally being as annoying and self-centered as possible.
There are others like me who can have fun without being jerks. Yet for major acts, we seem to be vastly outnumbered.
The answer then is clear. Win the Powerball, buy a large tract of land in the middle of nowhere, have my own personal Woodstock. You all are invited, of course. BYOB, just not so much of it you turn into That Guy and That Girl. Problem solved!
*DMB and Barenaked Ladies come to mind. Both magical. And somehow completely jerk-free, at least in my section. Wait...does this mean I was the jerk?
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