Live Event: Counting Crows and Matchbox 20

The last time we went to PNC Bank Arena in Charlotte, Charlie and I misbehaved. We were there to see Kelly Clarkson and Maroon 5 and Kristen (my sister) ended up babysitting us.

Since then, we’ve done Red Rocks twice and basically gotten our shit together. So the concert before the eclipse was not such a disaster. In fact, we did several things I’ve never done at a concert:

We arrived late.

Our friends Mike and Melanie live in Charlotte and we spent the afternoon pre-gaming on their back patio. Craft beers, snacks, shade, and comfy chairs are all better than sweating it out in the parking lot. Plus, Melanie is an old friend and Mike a new one so it was good to spend time getting to know them.

After we checked into the hotel, we wandered next door to TGI Friday’s for another pre-game beer and snack. Again, no hurry to get to the arena.

When we finally got parked and started walking in, we had missed the first two songs of Counting Crows’ set. Fortunately, our section was basically empty so finding our seats and settling in wasn’t too tough.

We sat down.

I only typically stand if the people in front of me are blocking my view. But that’s pretty much always the case. Except not this time. Our section was the first part of the outdoor half of the amphitheater, so a wide sidewalk separated us from the inside folks who all stood. We could see over them just fine. And we were only two rows back and no one sat in front of us.

So we sat. When it is so crazy hot, sitting or standing doesn’t really matter.

During our favorite Counting Crows songs we stood and danced, and the people behind us urged us to stand for Matchbox 20 and we did for the encore. Mostly, though, we just sat and enjoyed the live music and the light show and seeing Rob Thomas, who looks rather old by the way, on the big screens that flanked the stage.

We left early.

Apparently sitting and being hot is boring because by mid-way through Matchbox 20’s set we were kind of done with the whole thing.

It may have also been that our buzz was wearing off and the beers were $25 for two tall Budweisers and water was $5.

“You know it’s just water, right?” I said to the girl at the concessions. “And that $5 is way too much to charge?”

“Yes,” she replied.

When you can buy a case for $5 and that’s the retail markup you know you’re being gouged. Five dollars per bottle is $120 per case, or $115 worth of additional profit. What the hell? Price gouging always makes me angry but at concerts when it’s 100 degrees and it’s water-for-fuck’s-sake, I can’t hold my tongue.

“That’s ridiculous,” I told her.

“I agree,” she said. Then handed me my change and turned her attention to the woman behind me.

Anyway, we left early. We pretty much never leave early. I told Charlie I only cared about one song and as soon as Rob-looks-too-old-to-be-him-Thomas sang it, we could go. It was the first song in the encore.

So, we left.

Maybe it was that the tickets were Groupon and only cost me $17 each. Or maybe it’s that Charlie had to work on Monday so we needed to get up early. Maybe it was us trying to save money and therefore not drinking $25 beers or paying for an Uber.

Whatever the cause, we did this concert like grown-ups.

Counting Crows did not play as long as we would have liked but we did find that Matchbox 20 was better than we expected. We are now renewed Matchbox 20 fans. So, there’s that.

Live Event: Creative Mornings in Charlotte, NC

Before I left for Creative Mornings in Charlotte I dreamt about my older sister.

We were getting ready together in the bathroom we used to share as kids. Both of us planning to head to Charlotte on separate trips. As I descended the stairs, I noticed her bag sitting beside mine. It was one of those rack-mounted hiking gear things packed full. Mine was just a small duffle.

“Why don’t we ride together to Charlotte?” I asked her.

“Because I’m not coming back,” she said.

I haven’t spoken to my older sister in more than four years. We are estranged, to put it mildly, over some family business that others pretend never happened.

Dreaming about her is not unusual, she frequently appears in my dreams when I’m anxious or worried. Our estrangement is the biggest failure of my life.

What set this dream apart is that it preceded my drive to Charlotte for the July session of Creative Mornings, a gathering of creative professionals where one community member gives a talk on a global theme. This month’s theme was Equality and the speaker was a 19-year-old actress from Charlotte who is now touring with a Broadway show.

Her story of equality was that she was born a twin and her twin sister has Down’s Syndrome. She spoke candidly about the comparisons people made between the two of them and the ones she’d been making her whole life and how those comparisons always left her lacking in some way. They didn’t quite tell the story.

So, from my dream about my sister being on a longer journey than I to listening to a sister tell her story of equality, I felt there must be some greater order of the universe at work.

The truth is I never liked my sister very much. I loved her because she’s my sister but we could not be more opposite. There were a thousand little failures and fuck-ups that eroded my faith in her early on and I never trusted her to get anything right or do anything of value.

The truth is I never respected her enough to allow that her own opinions and ideas might be informed by her education and experience and that she had just as much right to them as I had to mine. I never respected her enough to allow that her mistakes are her own and she has every right to make them.

We are equal but we are not the same. That was the message from the “normal” twin Friday morning to a room full of creative-types in Charlotte, N.C.

We are the summation of our experiences and our hopes and our desires and our failures and the bloody cuts and missed opportunities and moments of joy and captured moments in photographs. We are all these things in our own myriad ways.

Imperfect and inimitable.

Equally able to hurt and love and dream. Out in the world as ourselves. Only ourselves.

The Green

Mrs. Bailey, who lives next door, has been married to her husband for 65 years. She said he’s been five different men since they met. This most recent one is much easier, she said. He’s senile and now she’s finally running the show.

A friend of mine who has been married 10 years, like me, said she’s already on the second version of her husband. He went to war in the second year of their marriage and Jessica wondered, given this pace, how many husbands she’ll have if they make it 65 years.

I married a rock-n-roll drummer.